Giant has a huge lineup of bikes and components covering all areas of cycling, and its road bikes range from £579 to £8,999 so there's something for pretty much every budget.

The vast number of models might seem daunting at first but the range is structured logically so it’s easy to work out the best choice for you.

One quick tip before we start is that the word 'Advanced' in a model name means that the frame is carbon-fibre.

All of Giant's road bikes feature groupsets from Shimano. The lower the number included in a bike name the higher the quality of the components. The TCR Advanced Pro 1 has a higher spec than the TCR Advanced Pro 2, for example, and the TCR Advanced Pro 0 has a higher level again.

Giant also has a women’s specific brand called Liv that offers an impressively large range.

TCR Advanced range

The TCR Advanced models are performance road bikes that are designed to be lightweight, stiff and agile, roughly the equivalent of a Trek Emonda or Specialized Tarmac.

All the TCR models are made from carbon-fibre of various grades, and they come in race geometries: low and stretched.

Giant updated the frames of all of the TCR models for the 2016 model year, the idea being to offer the best stiffness-to-weight possible, and added disc-braked models to the range. We wouldn't be surprised to see Giant reveal a revamped TCR some time in 2019.

TCR Advanced SL

Whereas brands like Trek, Merida and Bianchi have all introduced superlight race bikes to the market recently and other brands have concentrated on improving aerodynamic efficiency, Giant has gone after stiffness-to-weight as a means of offering efficiency.

The TCR Advanced SL is the flagship frameset in the range with a claimed frame weight of 856g and a claimed fork weight of 302g. It’s the brand’s lightest road frameset ever.

Giant says that the TCR Advanced SL comes out higher than any of its competitors in both a frameset pedalling stiffness-to-weight test and a frameset and wheelset pedalling stiffness-to-weight test, although other brands would doubtless dispute this.

When we got the chance to ride the TCR Advanced SL we described it as “an amazingly stiff race bike that’ll suit aggressive riders who prioritise all-out efficiency and super-sharp cornering in their efforts to get to the finish line first”.

Mixing seated riding with out of the saddle stuff for the steeper bits of our test rides, the bottom bracket was locked in place. It was the same deal in sprints: solid. If you’re a powerful rider who finds some bikes just a bit flexy when you get serious, give the TCR Advanced SL a go.

Read our First Ride report on the Giant TCR Advanced SL here.

It’s available as a rim brake frameset (£1,999), or in four complete bike builds: two with rim brakes and two with disc brakes. The disc brake frames use 12mm thru-axles front and rear.

The Giant TCR Advanced SL 2 (above, £3,499) is built up with a Shimano Ultegra mechanical groupset and Giant’s own SLR 1 wheels, while the Advanced SL 1 (£4,999) has the Di2 (electronic) version of Ultegra and SLR 1 wheels.

The Advanced SL1 Disc (£5,499) is the same but with the addition of Shimano Ultegra hydraulic disc brakes while the TCR Advanced SL 0 Dura-Ace (above, £7,999) comes with the Di2 (electronic) version of Shimano's top-level road groupset.

Buy if: You’re after a lightweight and stiff race bike and you’re willing to pay a significant amount of money.

TCR Advanced Pro

Although it’s made from a different grade of composite, many of the TCR Advanced SL’s features are carried over to the TCR Advanced Pro. Giant says that it trimmed weight from this bike in 2016 without sacrificing stiffness.

A wholesale slimming down took place. Giant reduced the profile size of the top tube, seatstays, chainstays, seatpost and fork legs, and made the walls a more consistent thickness than before to minimise excess weight. The lower headset bearing was shifted up slightly so that it’s more in line with the down tube.

The TCR Advanced Pro is available as a frameset (both rim brake and disc brake versions) and in seven different builds. The most accessible of these is the TCR Advanced Pro 2 (£2,399) that’s built up with a mid-level Shimano 105 groupset and Giant’s SLR 1 wheels. The TCR Advanced Pro 2 is available with disc brakes for £200 extra.

The TCR Advanced Pro 1 (above, £2,799) is next up with a Shimano Ultegra group and SLR 1 wheels. This is available in a Team Sunweb finish as well as a standard paintjob, and with disc brakes — again for an additional £200.

At the top of the range you'll find the TCR Advanced Pro 0 with Shimano Ultegra Di2 components and SLR 1 wheels. The rim brake model is £4,299 while the disc brake version is £4,499.

Read more: Giant TCR Advanced Pro 0 review

Buy if: You’re performance minded and prioritise frame stiffness.

TCR Advanced

The TCR Advanced (without an SL or Pro suffix) also got a lightened frameset for 2016 as well as a new Variant seatpost that’s designed to improve the ride quality and keep you feeling comfortable.

Like the other TCRs, the Advanced is built to Giant’s Compact Road Design. Essentially, this means that the top tube slopes downwards along its length and the frame triangles are smaller than usual. Giant says that this makes for a lighter, stiffer and smoother ride.

We wouldn’t say the Compact Road Design is inherently better than a traditional configuration, but some people do prefer it, especially because it gives you a lower standover height and a lot of exposed seatpost to soak up vibrations from the road.

The cheapest TCR Advanced is the Shimano Tiagra-equipped TCR Advanced 3 (above) which is available only with rim brakes (£1,299). The TCR Advanced 2, with Shimano 105 components, comes in rim brake (£1,499) and disc brake (£1,749) options, as does the TCR Advanced 1 (below, £1,799 and £1,999), with parts from Shimano's Ultegra range.

The disc brakes in question are Giant's Conduct hydraulic design. They're actually cable operated with a mechanical-to-hydraulic converter.

Find out more about the entire TCR Advanced range here.

Buy if: You’re looking for a high performance bike with reasonably accessible pricing.

Propel range

Whereas the TCR bikes are designed for stiffness-to-weight, the Propels are all about aerodynamics. In that sense, they’re competitors to the Trek Madone, for instance, the Merida Reacto and the Canyon Aeroad.

All Propels are built around carbon-fibre frames, although the grade of carbon varies across the range.

You'll notice that there's a large difference in price between a Propel with rim brakes and one with disc brakes and an otherwise similar spec. This is because Giant introduced a brand new disc brake Propel for model year 2018 whereas the rim brake Propels are built to an older design. It's not just the brakes that are different, it's the frameset technology. For that reason we'll divide them up here into rim brake and disc brake models.

Propel Advanced Pro

The Propel Advanced Pro's frame tubes have been designed with aerodynamics in mind, so you get a very deep down tube and a seat tube that’s cut away around the leading edge of the rear wheel – both features common to many other aero road bikes.

The Propel Advanced Pro is available in three different builds, The Shimano Ultegra Di2-equipped Propel Advanced Pro 0 (£4,499) is the top of the line, but the Propel Advanced Pro 1 (above, £2,999) looks the pick of the bunch in terms of value. It comes with a Shimano Ultegra groupset and Giant’s own 55mm deep SLR 1 Aero wheels. The range is completed by the Propel Advanced Pro 2 (£2,799) with Shimano 105 components.

Buy if: You're looking for an aero road bike with a proven frame and rim brakes.

Propel Advanced

The Propel Advanced is made from same grade of carbon-fibre as the Propel Advanced Pro but the fork comes with an alloy steerer rather than being a full-carbon design. That really doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

The Propel Advanced 2 (above) is good value. This bike comes with Shimano’s mid-level 105 groupset and the price is the same as it was last year: £1,599.

If you want deep section wheels, though, you need to go up to the Propel Advanced 0 (£2,999). This comes with Giant’s SL 1 Aero wheels and a Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset.

Buy if: You're after aerodynamic efficiency and want to stick with rim brakes.

Propel Advanced Disc

Giant added disc brakes to the Propel Advanced lineup in 2018, claiming that the flagship model, the Propel Advanced SL Disc, has the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio of any bike in its class and a lower drag coefficient at a wider range of yaw angles than the rim brake Propel.

“One of the key breakthroughs is a new truncated ellipse airfoil shape – a design that lowers drag at a wider range of wind angles than traditional teardrop frame tubing,” says Giant. “Engineers also found that, with proper integration, a disc-brake design can actually improve aero performance compared to rim-brake configurations.”

You also get a combined aero handlebar and stem with internal cable routing, and aero wheelsets with different rim depths front and rear, the idea being to reduce drag without compromising control or power transmission.

Two models are built around the top level Propel Advanced SL Disc frame, the less expensive of them (above), at £5,899, being equipped with Shimano Ultegra Di2 components.

The Propel Advanced Pro Disc frame is made with a slightly lower grade of carbon and it has a seatpost that's separate to the frame as opposed to the Propel Advanced SL Disc's integrated seatpost design. It has the same Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset, though, and is £1,000 cheaper at £4,899.

The Propel Advanced Disc uses the same grade of carbon as the Pro Disc but with an alloy steerer rather than a full carbon fork. Built up with a Shimano 105 groupset, the Propel Advanced 2 Disc (above) is priced £2,299 while £2,999 gets you the Propel Advanced 1 Disc with a Shimano Ultegra mechanical groupset.

Read our review of the Giant Propel Advanced Disc.

Buy if: You want an aero road bike with even lower drag than its rim brake equivalent.

Defy range

The Defy is Giant’s carbon-fibre endurance/sportive road bike lineup, designed to be comfortable over long distances while still providing plenty of speed.

A Defy has a shorter top tube than an equivalent TCR, for example, and a taller head tube to put you into a ride position that’s a bit more relaxed and back-friendly. Specialized takes a similar approach with its Roubaix bikes, Cannondale offers its Synapse range, and many other brands have their equivalents. All Defy bikes have disc brakes.

Giant has redesigned its Defy bikes for 2019, the latest models coming with clearance for 32mm tyres, and tubeless tyres fitted as standard. The bikes also get D-Fuse handlebars that, like the existing D-Fuse seatposts, are designed to allow a small amount of movement to absorb shock and vibrations.

Find out more about the new Giant Defy design here.

Defy Advanced Pro

The Defy Advanced Pro bikes are built around frames and forks made of Giant's Advanced Grade carbon composite. The most affordable model is the Defy Advanced Pro 2 (£2,799). This one has Shimano’s highly rated 105 groupset and an aluminium Contact SL D-Fuse handlebar.

Pay £3,199 for the Defy Advanced Pro 1 (above) and you'll get an upgrade to Shimano Ultegra and a carbon Contact SLR D-Fuse handlebar, while the Defy Advanced Pro 0 (£4,499) jumps up to Shimano Ultegra Di2. The big news, though, is that this top-of-the-range model is fitted with a Giant Power Pro double sided power meter.

Read our first ride report on the Giant Defy Advanced Pro 0.

Buy if: You prioritise comfort and want the assurance of hydraulic disc brakes.

Defy Advanced

The three Defy Advanced models are equipped with Giant's Conduct hydraulic disc brakes, cable operated with a converter attached to the stem.

The Defy Advanced 3 (£1,499) has Shimano’s fourth tier Tiagra components – great stuff that benefits from technology that has trickled down from higher level groupsets.

Check out our review of the 2017 Giant Defy Advanced 3.

We’d still be tempted to pay £200 extra and get the Defy Advanced 2 (above, £1,699) with Shimano 105, though.

The Defy Advanced 1 (£1,999) is equipped with a Shimano Ultegra groupset.

Read our Shimano Tiagra 4700 First Ride review here.

Buy if: You want a bike for comfortably racking up the miles.

Contend

The aluminium-framed Contend models are built to geometries that are similar to those of the carbon fibre Defy bikes (above) and they also come with tapered head tubes and steerers for accurate steering, and slim seatposts that are designed to damp vibration.

There are three flavours of Contend: Contend, Contend SL and Contend SL Disc.

If you're in the market for a bike at the typical Cycle To Work Scheme threshold of £1,000, the Contend SL 2 Disc (£999, above) is good value with Shimano Tiagra components and Giant's own Conduct disc brakes.

If you're a fan of lightweight aluminium-framed bikes, then the Contend SL models are well worth a look. When we reviewed the Contend SL1 (£999) we called it a "balanced and assured aluminium endurance bike equally suited to long rides at pace and commuter pothole-bashing".

"The Giant Contend SL 1 is an absolutely spot-on all-day ride," we said. "It's a comfortable and versatile sportive/endurance bike with a dependable feel that encourages you to keep going and just do those extra few miles."

The entry-level model in the range is the Contend 2 (£579, above) with components drawn largely from Shimano’s 8-speed Claris groupset.

Check out our guide to Shimano’s road bike groupsets here.

Read our review of the Giant Contend SL 1.

Buy if: You want the comfort of an endurance road bike and you don’t necessarily feel the need for discs.

Enviliv

The designed-for-women Enviliv (formerly called Envie) bikes are branded Liv rather than Giant, and they’re essentially women’s versions of Propels. Like the Propels, they’re divided up into different categories. There’s no SL version but there are Enviliv Advanced and Advanced Pro models.

The cheapest model is the £1,599 Enviliv Advanced 2 (above) with a Shimano 105 groupset, while the top-level rim brake model is the Enviliv Advanced Pro (£3,149) with Shimano Ultegra components.

The most affordable of the three disc brake models is the £3,499 Enviliv Advanced Pro 2 Disc with dependable Shimano 105 parts and Giant's SLR-1 Aero wheels.

Buy if: You want an aero road bike in a women’s-specific geometry.

Liv Langma

Langma is a range of women’s-specific carbon-framed road race bikes, designed to be lightweight and efficient.

The Shimano Tiagra-equipped Langma Advanced 3 (above) is available in a rim brake version only (£1,299) while the Langma Advanced 2, which steps up to Shimano 105 components, comes in both rim brake (£1,499) and disc brake (£1,749) models. The same is true of the Advanced 1 which is kitted out in Shimano Ultegra (£1,799 and £1,999).

The Langma Advanced Pro bikes use the same Advanced Grade composite but get a slightly different headset system and a full-carbon fork rather than a fork with an aluminium steerer. The more affordable of the rim brake models is Langma Advanced Pro 1 (above, £2,799) with a Shimano Ultegra groupset.

There are three Langma Advanced Pro Disc bikes this year, with thru axles and hydraulic disc brakes. The cheapest of these is the Liv Langma Advanced Pro 2 Disc (above, £2,599) which has Shimano 105 components. This bike isn't available in a rim brake format.

The top level Langma platform is the Advanced SL, made from a higher grade of carbon and available only with rim brakes. The Langma Advanced SL 1 (£4,999) has a Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset while the £7,999 Langma Advanced SL 0 (above) is equipped with super-slick Shimano Dura-Ace Di2.

Buy if: You want a women’s-specific carbon-framed road race bike that's designed to be lightweight and efficient.

Liv Avail

The Liv Avail bikes are pretty much women’s versions of the Giant Defys and Contends. It’s a large range containing 10 different models, covering both carbon-fibre Advanced models and aluminium-framed bikes.

There are six aluminium Avails, four of them with rim brakes and the other two with discs. Both the Avail SL 2 Disc (above, £999) and the Avail SL 1 Disc (£1,249) are fitted with Giant's own Conduct hydraulic disc brakes.

The rim-braked aluminium Avails start with the Avail 2 (above, £599) — the women's equivalent of the Contend 2 — and go up to the Avail SL 1 (£999) with Shimano's 105 components.

Top of the carbon fibre Avails is the Avail Advanced Pro (above, £2,999) with a Shimano Ultegra groupset, including hydraulic disc brakes. All of the other Avail Advanced bikes are equipped with hydraulic disc brakes too.

Buy if: You’re after an endurance road bike that’s made especially for women.

AnyRoad

​The AnyRoads are really interesting bikes that are designed for riding both on asphalt and on rougher roads – gravel, towpaths, forest tracks, that kind of thing. Many other manufacturers are producing bikes that are similarly versatile: GT makes the Grade, for example, and Jamis has the Renegade.

The AnyRoad is built with a tall head tube for a fairly upright riding position, and comes with 32mm tyres for grip and comfort on less than perfect road surfaces.

There are two aluminium-framed AnyRoads, the cheapest of which is the AnyRoad 2 (above, £899) with a Shimano Sora groupset and TRP Spyre mechanical disc brakes.

The AnyRoad Advanced (above, £1,799) has a full carbon frame. This one has a Shimano Tiagra groupset and Giant's Conduct cable operated hydraulic disc brakes (using a mechanical-to-hydraulic converter).

Buy if: You want a relaxed geometry bike that’s capable of riding on smooth and not-so-smooth roads.

The 2019 Giant and Liv range

Updated April 2, 2019

The bike shops are full of new road bikes for 2019; here are 10 of the most eye-catching.

Loads of the new road bikes that have been revealed over the past few months are equipped with disc brakes and that's reflected here. There are certainly new rim brake designs being released, and we've included several, but big brands are concentrating their research and development on disc brake bikes because that's the way they believe the market is heading.

Most of the new bikes we've included here are pretty expensive. That's because new releases tend to be pricey before the technology gradually trickles down the range over time.

Don't worry if your favourite new bike isn't included; we'll have more 2019 bike roundups on road.cc over the next few weeks.

Check out all of our road bike reviews

Cannondale SystemSix — £3,499.99-£8,499.99

Cannondale claims that its new SystemSix, available only with disc brakes, is “the world’s fastest UCI-legal road bike”, largely thanks to an aerodynamic performance that has been honed by computational fluid dynamics modelling and the wind tunnel.

Cannondale says that it has tailored the airfoil profiles of the various parts of the frame “with differing degrees of truncation designed to maintain flow attachment across important yaw angles to minimise drag”.

The £3,499.99 SystemSix Carbon Ultegra comes with Fulcrum Racing 400 DB wheels and a Shimano Ultegra groupset, including hydraulic disc brakes.

Get all the tech details on the Cannondale SystemSix
Read about our first ride aboard the Cannondale SystemSix
Find a Cannondale dealer

Specialized Venge — £6,500-£9,750

Specialized has radically redesigned its Venge aero road bike for 2019, giving it an all-new frame and fork that's compatible only with disc brakes and electronic gears – meaning that there are no complete bikes available for less than £6,250. Gulp!

The new Venge is lighter and faster than the previous version but we found that it's the much-improved handling and stiffness that most sets it apart.

Get all the tech details on the Specialized Venge
Check out our Specialized Venge first ride report
Find a Specialized dealer

Look 795 Blade RS — from £3,000

The new Look 795 Blade RS aero road bike features truncated aero section tubes, an invisible seatpost clamp and an integrated aero cockpit. The seatstays are long and curved and there's no brake bridge between them. The design is intended to allow some vertical movement for increased comfort and traction. The bike is available in both rim brake and disc brake versions.

Get the full story of the Look 795 Blade RS
Find a Look dealer

Giant Defy — £1,499-£4,499

The latest version of Giant’s hugely popular endurance road bike has wider tyre clearance than previously (up to 32mm), tubeless tyres and D-Fuse handlebars that are designed to provide extra compliance. The Defy Advanced Pro 0 also comes with Giant’s new Power Pro dual-sided power meter, which looks like a great deal for £4,499.

Get all the tech details on the new Giant Defy
Read about our first ride on the Giant Defy Advanced Pro 0
Find a Giant dealer

3T Strada Due (frameset) — £3,699

The Strada aero road bike was initially designed with a single chainring transmission in mind but 3T has now added the Strada Due to the lineup, giving you the option of fitting an electronic groupset with a double chainring. The seat tube has also been beefed up a little to support the use of the front mech, but that change aside it's the same as the original Strada.

Read our report on the launch of the 3T Strada Due
Check out our first ride on the 3T Strada Due

Find a 3T dealer

Trek Madone SLR — £5,400-£11,650

Trek's new Madone road bike comes with adjustable IsoSpeed (a system that decouples the seat tube from the top tube to smooth the ride) and an updated geometry.

Read our guide to Trek's 2019 road bike range

The rim brake bikes are slightly lighter than the newly introduced disc brake models, but Trek says there's no aerodynamic penalty in going for discs.

The Madone SLR is a high-end option, even the most affordable rim brake option, the SLR 6 P1, is £5,500.

Read our report on the new Trek Madone here
Check out our guide to Trek's 2019 range
Find a Trek dealer

Triban RC 500 & RC 520 — £529 & £729

A cheap entry on a list of the hottest bikes? Why not? Decathlon has added two new disc-braked models in the popular Triban range and they look like exceptional value for money. The £530 Triban RC 500 and £730 Triban RC 520 share the new Evo 18 6061 aluminium frame, with a tall head tube, steeply sloping top tube, fittings for racks and mudguards and clearance for tyres up to 40mm wide.

These are deeply practical bikes, but they’re not unexciting. It might take a little while to wind them up to speed but once there they boom along very nicely!

Read our review of the Triban RC 520
Get all the details of the new Triban RC 500 and RC 520
Find a Triban dealer

Genesis Zero Disc — £2,699.99

Genesis has added disc brake versions of its Zero carbon fibre race bike for 2019, with 12mm thru-axles and flat mount disc brakes. The aggressive geometry is unaltered.

You can buy the frameset for £1,699.99 or pay £2,699.99 for the complete bike with Shimano's second-tier Ultegra groupset, including hydraulic disc brakes.

Check out our first look at the Genesis Zero SL Disc
Find a Genesis dealer

Colnago C64 — £4,099.95-£4,599 (frameset)

The updated Colnago C64 builds on the success of its predecessor with a raft of refinements that bring enhanced stiffness, comfort and clearance for wider tyres. It isn't so much a revolution as an evolution, and it's the best C series yet, and one of a handful of bikes still made in Italy.

A complete bike with disc brakes starts from £7,739, which isn't cheap by anyone's measure, but is it worth it? "Smooth, fast, light, surefooted, fun... the C64 is one of the nicest bikes I've had the pleasure to review," said our David Arthur, and he's a man with exacting standards!

Read our review of the Colnago C64 frameset
Find a Colnago dealer

Ridley Noah Fast — £6,729-£8,189

Ridley has redesigned its top-level aero road bike with channels towards the front edge of the tubing that are designed to act as vortex generators to reduce drag. The fork integrates with the frame, the seatpost clamp is hidden from the airflow and an integrated handlebar/stem is fitted up front. The cabling is internally routed through the bar/stem and Ridley claims a weight saving of about 250g over the previous Noah. Both rim brake and disc brake versions are available.

Find a Ridley dealer

Tubeless wheelsets have become way more popular recently, thanks especially to the growing number of tubeless tyres out there these days, and here are some of the best that we've reviewed for over a grand.

Check out 10 of the best tubeless wheelsets for under £1,000

A tubeless system is essentially a clincher tyre inflated onto a rim without an inner tube. Instead, an airtight chamber is created with a tubeless-specific tyre, developed with a special bead and a compatible rim. 

One big advantage is the substantially reduced risk of puncturing, as long as you use liquid sealant inside the tyre and keep it topped up. If the tyre is punctured, the sealant plugs the hole. The tyre might suffer a small drop in pressure if you puncture, but the sealant will deal with most small holes caused by flint and thorns, allowing you to keep riding.

If you want to go tubeless you need the right wheels, and here are 10 of the best, some for rim brakes and some for discs. They've all been awarded an overall of score of at least 8 out of 10 in road.cc reviews.

Clicking on the name of each wheelset will take you to a dealer.

Hunt 30 Carbon Dynamo Disc £1,059 

These Carbon 30 Disc Dynamo wheels are excellent. The rim is 30mm deep, made from unidirectional T24/30 carbon fibre with the spoke holes reinforced with a 3K weave. It's a reasonably wide profile, with a 27mm external width and a 21mm internal profile. 

The wheels came with tubeless rim tape fitted, and a hole for the valve. Fitting Schwalbe G-One Speeds was easy. Our review pair came tightly built and true, and they stayed that way during testing. With 28 spokes front and rear they're built for bikepacking and ultra-distance rather than fully loaded touring; Hunt recommends a 115kg limit for rider and luggage. 

The SON Delux dynamo is specifically designed for road riding. It weighs just 395g and when turned off generates just 0.4W of drag, barely more than a standard front hub. The efficiency is rated at 65%, and the dynamo outputs 3W of power at 20km/h, so to power your lights or your USB charger you can expect to be putting less than 5W into the system. We used the dynamo with a Busch & Muller IQ-X front light and a Supernova E3 rear, getting easily enough power to light the way. 

At the rear Hunt is using its 4Season Disc hub that has extra shielding for the EZO cartridge bearings inside. Both front and rear hubs use standard J-bend spokes which should be fairly easy to find a replacement for if you pop one out on tour. The wheels come with two spares of each length to take with you too, plus a spoke key, 6-bolt adaptors for the Centerlock disc mounts, tubeless rim tape (fitted) and tubeless valves.

Overall these wheels are excellent. They're light and well built, the front dynamo is as good as they come for road riding and the rear hub has been great too. They're sensibly built, come with spares, and are set up for the long haul. 

Read our review 
Buy from Hunt 

Reynolds ATR X 650B £1,105 

The original ATR rim was a chunky affair, and this design (called the ATR 2 when we reviewed it, but having since be renamed) is even wider: 23mm internally and 32mm externally, with a depth of 40mm. The bulbous profile follows the developments in aero wheel technology that are pushing towards increasingly toroidal designs, but Reynolds doesn't make any particular aero claims for this wheelset.

You get 24 spokes front and rear; that's not much for an all-purpose wheelset like this, but one of the main benefits of a carbon rim is that it's laterally stiffer for the same weight, meaning that the spoke count can be reduced.

If you're heading off to terrain that's more challenging, especially with a loaded bike, then carbon does still have advantages over alloy for its impact resistance. 

These ATR wheels were easy to set up tubeless. Ours came fitted with rim tape and were supplied with valves. The 40mm Schwalbe G-Ones went up first time; bigger tyres that were a baggier fit required a couple of extra wraps of tape to tighten things up, but we got them sealed just fine.

Our test wheels came fitted a Shimano 11-speed freehub. You can also have an XD driver if you want a wider cassette, or a Campagnolo freehub. 

The disc mount is Centerlock and these wheels come set up with 12mm axles front and rear. You can run the front as a 15mm axle; those end caps come with the wheels. If you want to run quick releases then QR end caps are available separately.

We had a very positive experience with these wheels. As a 650B wheelset, they're not necessarily overpriced considering the materials and build quality (and lifetime warranty), but you might question whether, for riding on the road with big tyres, a carbon rim has enough of a benefit over alloy to justify the inevitable price difference. It'll depend on what you're planning. If your riding takes you to genuinely technical terrain, or you're riding a loaded bike, or both, the extra stiffness and impact resistance of a carbon rim will be useful. If you're looking for more comfort on the road then the performance is great, but the price hike less justified.

Read our review
Find a Reynolds dealer

Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless DT 350 £1,159.99

These Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless Ready wheels are seriously good for their price tag. They're stable in strong winds, quick to spin up to speed and also quick to stop. What's more, you get great hubs and high-end pads. It's a great package.

This full carbon wheelset comes in at a very respectable 1,450g. The rims are 26mm wide externally, laced to the brilliant DT Swiss 350 hubs with DT Aerolite spokes.

Those hubs are pretty bombproof. While these wheels were used in mostly dry conditions, we've had these hubs on wheels that have seen some horrendous weather; they're solid and don't require much attention. While we're on reliability, we had zero spoke tension issues even after a few big hits in races.

At 45mm deep, these strike a great balance between speed, quick acceleration and handling. They don't pick up strong winds which is probably down to the blunt profile at the leading and trailing edges. 

One of the attractions of this set of wheels is what you get for your money. They come in a well-padded double wheel bag with a zippered storage compartment containing brake pads and skewers. You also get a set of tubeless valves.

Read our review
Find a Fast Forward dealer 

Giant SLR 0 42mm £1,379.48 

The Giant SLR 0 42mm wheels are an ideal all-round go-faster set of hoops. The rims are wide, feel fast and handle well. The hubs are simple to service, quiet and robust. They performed excellently during testing in my mix of hilly races, flat criteriums and general riding with good braking and stability in crosswinds. 

The 42mm-deep full-carbon rims are tubeless ready and the spokes are DT Aerolites – straight-pull with internal nipples. This gives a very clean build, although one that isn't so easy for maintenance. Not that it will matter, for a while at least, as the wheels were perfectly straight out of the box and remained that way.

The hubs are Giant branded, with DT Swiss 240 internals. This is a great balance between performance and reliability with easy maintenance.

We didn't find these wheels hard to handle in windy conditions. In fact, they felt very stable. The wheels also feel zippy when climbing thanks to the respectable weight: 629g front and 791g rear, giving a total of 1,420g. Weight isn't everything, though. We were also impressed with the lateral stiffness. 

Overall, we were impressed with these Giant wheels because they're a great option if you want one wheelset for racing and general riding. 

Read our review 
Find a Giant dealer 

DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline 65 £1,120.00

The DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline clincher wheels have deep section 65mm rims for aerodynamic efficiency, they're well made and come with excellent internals.

The rim is a NACA shape with a fairly blunt profile, although the PRCs are in no way bulbous like Zipps, for example. The PRCs can be a little hard to handle on some gusty, blustery days, but this is rare – and not much different from any other wheels of a similar depth. 

The PRC wheels use DT Swiss's well-respected 240 hubs. The freehub features a ratchet system (rather than standard pawls). Springs push two 36-tooth star ratchets together to engage when you pedal, all of the teeth engaging at the same time in just 10 degrees. This system works really well and durability is excellent.

The wheels feel stiff in use, so you can set your brake pads very close to the rim without danger of rubbing when you corner hard or ride out of the saddle.

Braking in dry conditions is good – progressive without any grabbing – and braking in the wet, although not exceptional, is sure and confident. 

You get tubeless tape and tubeless valves as part of the package (along with RWS Steel quick releases and SwissStop Black Prince brake pads). Setting them up tubeless is easy enough. 

You are getting some seriously good wheels for your money here. Granted, these don't offer quite the aero performance of DT Swiss's ARC 1100 Dicut wheels but the PRCs feature excellent components, they're stiff, braking is good and, for their depth, they feel pretty stable in most conditions. This is a reliable high-performance wheelset that puts in a great performance in a variety of conditions.

Read our review 
Find a DT Swiss dealer 

Roval CLX 50 Disc £1,850

Fast, light and wide, these tubeless carbon disc brake wheels offer excellent performance.

The aim for the new Roval CLX 50 was to marry the aero performance of the deeper section CLX 64 with the lightness of the shallower CLX 32. At 1,415g with a 50mm-deep rim and disc brake hubs, they appear to have achieved that objective. This is a very attractive weight in a hugely competitive wheel market. 

It's a full carbon fibre construction, tubeless ready and available in disc or rim brake versions, with a wide and bulbous profile rim. Internal rim width is 20.7mm, external is 29.4mm, ensuring wider tyres are happily accommodated; between 22 and 47mm can be used. 

The clincher rims are tubeless-ready, using a hookless bead design that is favoured by a few other wheel brands, and claimed to provide a stronger rim with less weight.

At the centre of the wheels are new hubs designed to minimise drag. That accounts for the smooth shape. Inside the hubs are DT Swiss 240 internals with upgraded CeramicSpeed bearings. DT Swiss also supplies the Aerolite spokes.

These wheels are superbly fast in a straight line and maintain excellent momentum when you're really pushing hard on the pedals. They're also tough and dependable. They easily shrug off bad road surfaces; we've smashed into potholes and ridden them along gravel tracks and they've taken all the punishment with no sign of loose spokes or going out of true.

They're smooth and comfortable for a deep-section wheelset, something you really appreciate when riding along a washboard or chattery surface, where the rapid vibrations can easily unsettle an otherwise smooth ride, and especially if you head off onto gravel or dirt roads. 

The Rovals handle winds superbly. The rounded rim profile provides exceptionally good stability with little sign of buffeting even in the strongest gusts.

Read our review 
Find a Roval dealer 

Mavic Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST £1,899.00 

Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST wheels make tubeless technology truly nothing to fear, with all the benefits attached. These are very capable performance all-rounders.

Compared to the previous model, these wheels come with a re-engineered, deeper rim bed with an additional lip to create a secure tubeless seal, and specially designed Yksion Pro tyres to fit this new design.

The rim has an external width of 25mm rim, an internal width of 17mm and a 40mm depth, with a NACA-inspired profile. The excellent iTgMax laser brake track treatment improves the braking performance.

These wheels excel in pretty much any conditions – including gusty winds, where they stay remarkably stable. On climbs they're stiff as you like and they'll slice through valley headwinds.

Although not quite the performance-value proposition they used to be back when they were clinchers, Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL USTs are still competitive, while boasting arguably the easiest-to-install tubeless interface around.

Read our review
Find a Mavic dealer 

Bontrager Aeolus XXX 4 TLR Clincher Road £1,999.98

Bontrager's Aeolus XXX 4 TLR clincher wheels are stiff, lightweight and steady in use and offer good braking in both wet and dry conditions. This is a great all-round aero wheelset that's suitable for a wide variety of conditions.

The rim shape is completely new, developed using CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software and wind tunnel testing. The external width at the brake track is 27mm while the internal width is to 21mm, offering plenty of support for the 25mm tyres for which these wheels are optimised. Bontrager says that the Aeolus XXX 4 has lower drag than the Zipp 303 NSW at all yaw angles from 0-17.5°, with the Zipp slightly lower at 20°.

The wheelset is lightweight considering the rim depth, ours coming in at 1,420g for the pair. The focus here is more on aerodynamics, but you're never going to turn down a saving.

The Aeolus XXX 4 TLRs are stiff and stable. Crosswinds do have an effect, but it's not massive considering the 47mm rim depth and there's none of that twitchiness that you get with some aero rims.  The Aeolus XXX 4 TLRs have behaved well on super-windy rides recently. Crosswinds do have an effect, of course, but it's not massive considering the 47mm rim depth and, even more important to my mind, the wheels behave predictably. There's none of that twitchiness that you get with some.

Bontrager has introduced a new feature to the rim brake versions of its Aeolus XXX wheels called a Laser Control Track. Automated laser machining 'roughens the brake track to an optimised level that maximises braking performance when used with SwissStop Black Prince pads (which come as part of the package). Braking performance is noticeably better than before, especially in wet conditions.

All of Bontrager's XXX models are tubeless-ready, coming with the necessary rim strips, valve stems and sealant refill kit.

Read our review
Find a Bontrager dealer 

Knight 35 Tubeless £2,000.00

The Knight 35 wheels are fast; they are also stiff, reliable and stable. 

The 35s come with DT Swiss 240 hubs, which are brilliant. With cartridge bearings and easy servicing, they should last for ages. 

Spokes are Sapim's CX Rays. One thing that slightly annoyed our reviewer was the use of internal nipples. Yes, it looks clean but should you ping these out of true thanks to a pothole, it's more of a hassle to get them straight again.

Although the wheelset isn't superlight – ours came in at 1,590g with rim tape and skewers installed – the weight is still pretty low, and translates to a nippy feel. It's very easy to get these wheels up to speed and then increase that speed, especially when climbing. 

The 35s are the shallowest section wheels that Knight offers. The rim profile is somewhere between a 'V' shape and a 'U'. This gives the rim an external width of 25mm, sitting very nicely with wider tyres. 

The brake track is engineered with a 3mm brake surface for improved heat dissipation in an attempt by Knight to combat brake fade and even blow-outs on long descents. The braking is smooth and consistent. While stopping still isn't as good as aluminium rims, there is room for improvement in the form of softer brake pads; those supplied are quite hard. That does mean they'll last quite a while, but we were quick to swap in a softer pad for better power.

Overall, the Knight 35s offer a very good package for a shallow carbon clincher. 

Read our review 
Buy from Sigma Sport 

Edco Brocon Disc £2,900

The new Edco Brocon Disc Brake wheelset pushes the boundaries when it comes to the design and use of carbon fibre pretty much throughout. The wheels are light, strong and offer a wonderful ride feel, but you do have to pay nearly three grand for them.

For the Brocons' construction, Edco has used a 10k carbon weave design rather than a uni-directional one (woven, rather than all the fibres travel in one direction), saying that the higher shield strength of the woven material increases the impact strength. It's certainly a strong set of wheels and they feel absolutely solid.

The Brocons are based around 28mm-deep, tubeless-ready carbon rims, which means they are more of an 'all-rounder' than a deeper pure race wheel, although that does keep the weight down. (Ignore the name on the rim – we were sent an early set, incorrectly labelled.)

The pair weigh just 1,500g including the supplied tubeless rim tape, which is pretty impressive for a disc brake wheelset. With an inner rim width of just 17mm, Edco recommends tyres only up to 28mm wide.

What really sets the Brocons apart from most other wheels is the use of carbon fibre for the spokes that are easily adjusted or replaced. The hubs are aluminium alloy with NBK bearings and water resistant o-rings.

The Brocons are very stiff with is absolutely no feeling of lateral flex when you are giving it everything in a sprint or on a climb. This stiffness doesn't translate to harshness, though, as the carbon fibre spokes give a plush ride taking out any road buzz.

The Edcos are solid and feel very strong, standing up to all the abuse we threw at them and remaining true throughout. The hubs feel very smooth and the freehub pawl engagement is brilliantly quick.

These are very good wheels and although the price is high because of the technology and materials, it's not necessarily excessive for what you are getting.

Read our review
Find an Edco dealer 

Updated April 3, 2019

All of the big brands have aero road bikes in the range these days, most in both rim brake and disc brake options.

Aero road bikes essentially draw aerodynamic features from time trial bikes into a road frame, and balance the demands of weight and stiffness into a package that, on paper, looks to be the ideal all-round choice.

You're always working against air resistance when you ride your bike; the higher the speed the more significant it gets. Although most of that air resistance results from you — your body and what you're wearing — a significant chunk is acting against your bike, hence the development of aero road bikes that are designed to produce the minimum of drag.

Here are some of the best aero road bikes of 2019. We'll run part 2 — featuring the likes of Specialized, Colnago, BMC, Ridley and 3T — next week.

Find out which is more important, aerodynamics or a light weight

Cannondale SystemSix — £3,499-£8,499

Cannondale described the disc brake-only SystemSix as the "fastest bike in the world" when it was revealed in July 2018. It also said that the SystemSix is more than an aero bike, although there's certainly a massive focus on aero efficiency here.

Read about our first ride on the Cannondale SystemSix
Find a Cannondale dealer

Cervelo S5 Disc — £4,899-£9,699

The updated Cervelo S5 features a V-shaped stem integrated into a new fork that's fully external. According to Cervelo, the stem reduces drag by allowing unimpeded airflow along the top tube. The aero-shaped down tube has a cutaway leading edge to allow it to sit close to the front wheel in order to manage the airflow in that area.

Get all the details on the Cervelo S5 Disc here
Find a Cervelo dealer

Bianchi Aria — £2,300-£4,500

Bianchi's Aria, available with either rim brakes or disc brakes, is an efficient aero road bike that handles sharply. Although hardly a budget option, it comes in a variety of builds and is a more accessible choice than any of the brand's Oltres.

Check out our Bianchi Aria review
Read our review of the Bianchi Aria Disc
Find a Bianchi dealer

Giant Propel — £1,599-£8,999

You can still buy a Propel with rim brakes but the latest update is a disc-brake only design that Giant says is more aerodynamically efficient than any of its predecessors. It's stiff and efficient and available in a wide variety of builds to suit different budgets.

See our review of the Giant Propel Advanced Disc
Read our guide to Giant's 2019 range
Find a Giant dealer

Orro Venturi — £2,599.99-£3,299.99

The Venturi is a disc brake-only design with 12mm thru axles front and rear. The frame is optimised for 28mm-wide tyres and uses spread tow carbon from Sigmatex — flat and wide unidirectional tapes that are designed to reduce weight and increase stiffness.

Find an Orro dealer

Vitus ZX1 Disc — £2,099.99-£4,599.99

The ZX1, available only with disc brakes, is a fast and smooth carbon bike that handles superbly. You get Kammtail shaped tube profiles, a fork crown that's recessed into the frame, an aero seatpost and internal cable routing to reduce drag. It offers good value for money in a race-ready package.

Read our review of the Vitus ZX1 CRi Aero Disc Ultegra Di2
Buy a Vitus

Pinarello Dogma F10 — £4,499-£4,600 (frameset)

The Dogma F10 — both rim brake and disc brake models are available — might not be a full-on aero road bike like some here but it certainly has aero features such as a flatback down tube profile that's designed to smooth the airflow over the water bottle, and fins behind the fork dropouts to reduce drag around the quick release lever.

Read all about the Pinarello Dogma F10 here
Find a Pinarello dealer

Merida Reacto — £1,000-£8,250

Merida's Reacto aero road bikes have slim tube shapes, a low seatstay connection and, in some cases, a one-piece cockpit. They're available in two different geometries and in both disc brake and rim brake models. Merida claims the difference in aero efficiency between rim brake and disc models is less than one watt at 45km/h (28mph).

Find out all about the Merida Reacto here
Read our review of the Merida Reacto Disc Team-E
Find a Merida dealer

Rose Xeon CW — £2,131.88-£5,262.99

You tend to get a lot for your money by buying direct from Rose, the rim brake version of the Xeon CW aero bike coming with Shimano's second tier Ultegra groupset for £2,132. The disc brake model is just over £300 more expensive.

Buy a Rose

Ribble Aero 883 — £1,599-£6,761

One of the best things about buying from Ribble is that you can use its online Bike Builder system to select the parts you want based on your preferences and budget. You can go all the way up to a Sram Red eTap groupset, a Quarq DZero power meter and Zipp 404 wheels if you have the cash.

Buy a Ribble

Scott Foil — £2,499-£10,999

The Scott Foil has been known for its versatility over the past few years and these days it's available in both rim brake and disc brake guises. The most affordable rim brake option, with Shimano 105 components, is £2,499 while disc brake models start at £3,199.

Find a Scott dealer

Boardman Air — £1,750-£6,000

The Air bikes feature truncated airfoil tube profiles that are deeper and narrower than those that you’ll find on most other aero road bikes, while the cutaway section of the seat tube is designed to work best with 25mm-wide tyres although there’s space for 28s if you prefer.

Read our review of the Boardman Elite Air 9.2
Find a Boardman dealer

Canyon Aeroad £2,449-£6,849

With its Trident 2.0 tube profiles (essentially a cut-off aerofoil, Kamm tail shape) and skinny head tube and fork blades, the Aeroad has been one of the benchmark aero road bikes of the past few years. You also get predictable handling and plenty of comfort thrown in.

Read our Canyon Aeroad CF SLX Disc 8.0 Di2 review
Buy a Canyon

Trek Madone SLR — £5,400-£11,650

Trek's 2019 Madones are hugely updated with a new geometry. The SLR range comes with adjustable IsoSpeed and the option of disc brakes. The rim brake version is lighter but there's no aerodynamic penalty in opting for discs, according to Trek.

Read our story on the new Trek Madone range here
Check out our guide to Trek's 2019 road bike range
Find a Trek dealer

After a faltering start, it looks like disc brake-equipped road race bikes are here to stay with ever more manufacturers bringing out new models for 2019.

Toward the end of June 2018, the UCI (cycle sport’s world governing body) announced that disc brakes would be allowed in road races, after a lengthy trial period that was marked by occasionally acrimonious debate about the safety of discs.

The UCI first introduced a trial period for using disc brakes in the pro peloton at the end of the 2015 season, but suspended it following injuries to riders in the 2016 Paris-Roubaix that were alleged to have resulted from disc rotors.

Read our story from last year: Have disc brakes really led to injuries in peloton?

The trial was later resumed with slight modifications to disc rotors demanded, and riders such as sprinter Marcel Kittel raced on disc-equipped bikes throughout the 2017 season.

Check out Marcel Kittel’s Tour de France stage winning Specialized S-Works Venge ViAS Disc.

Why disc brakes at all? The promised benefits are greater modulation and more power, especially in wet conditions, no fade on long descents, rims that don’t wear out, less maintenance and longer lasting brake pads.

On the other hand, disc brakes are currently heavier than rim brakes and there are some concerns about their impact on aerodynamics, although Giant, for example, claims that its new Propel Disc has less drag than its rim brake predecessor.

Here's a roundup of some of the coolest road bikes with disc brakes.

Canyon Ultimate CF SLX Disc 9.0 SL eTap AXS — £5,699

Canyon's lightweight Ultimate bike is dressed here with SRAM's new 12-speed eTap AXS components and DT Swiss ARC 1400 Dicut wheels. Although it's undeniably a big ticket item, comparatively you're getting a lot for your money here and the bike comes fully ready to race. It's stiff, fast and impressively light for a disc brake bike. A Canyon Ultimate paired with any high-end groupset and race wheels would be right near the top of our wishlist for an all-round race bike.

Read our review of the Canyon Ultimate CF SLX Disc 9.0 Movistar

Specialized Tarmac Disc — £2,250-£10,000

The Tarmac SL6 was the big noise for 2018, and shortly after the rim-braked version debuted a disc-braked bike was introduced, first with an S-Works only version but very soon more affordable models followed.

The range is spearheaded by the S-Works Tarmac Disc Sagan Collection LTD, just the thing for the Peter Sagan fan who wants a fast bike with modern brakes and who has ten grand burning a hole in their pocket.

Those of more modest means should check out the  the Tarmac Disc Comp - Sagan Collection LTD (£3,100). The most affordable model is the Tarmac Disc Sport (£2,250), in men's and women's versions and sporting a Shimano 105 groupset.

Rose X-Lite Six Disc Ultegra Di2 — £4,037.77

The Rose X-Lite 6 Disc Ultegra Di2 is a quick, sharp-handling disc-brake bike that can thrill and excite as well as the best of them. And with Rose's custom direct-to-consumer business model, it's also excellent value.

Riding the X-Lite 6 Disc there's an immediate sense of sharpness right from the first pedal stroke. Instantly, you know that you're riding a precision tool. Steering is super-quick and direct, with only the lightest touch or lean required to influence the direction of travel. In fact, it takes a little getting used to if you're not accustomed to such quick responses.

It's lost none of the razor-sharp handling of the old X-Lite, yet there's definitely an added layer of composure at its core. Settle down on a climb and spin away, and the directness transforms into a stable platform. It's an incredibly involving ride on descents too. Leaving aside the proven excellence of disc brakes for a moment (the usual superlatives around power, modulation and all-weather performance apply), the frame responds instantly as you lean, carving a very direct line as you aim for your chosen apex.

Read our review of the Rose X-Lite Six Disc Ultegra Di2

Lightweight Urgestalt Disc frameset — £3,989

We try not to focus too much on bike weight around these parts because it's really not as important as some people would have you believe, but it would be nuts to ignore it in this case. Lightweight claims a frameset weight of 1,175g and our built-up Urgestalt Disc weighed 6.7kg (14.7lb) without pedals. Stick some on and you're good to go and race up the Tourmalet in the Tour de France. We're pretty confident that makes the Urgestalt Disc the lightest disc brake-equipped bike we've ever reviewed on road.cc.

In use, the Lightweight Urgestalt Disc feels super-responsive when you put in extra effort, joining in energetically when you ask for a burst of speed to get away from the group or chase down someone with escape on their mind. The sharper the acceleration, the more you notice the lack of ballast.

The other time you notice it is on the steeper climbs. The Urgestalt Disc feels like it's working with you on the hills rather than reluctantly dragging itself up with an if-I-must attitude. Some bikes seem to be asking why we couldn't have gone around the side rather than going over the top, whereas this bike just gets cracking.

Read our review of the Lightweight Urgestalt Disc

Trek Emonda 2019 — £1,400-£10,049

Trek added disc brake models to its lightweight Emonda lineup in 2018, the top level Emonda SLR Disc frame coming in at an astonishing claimed weight of just 665g. That’s still the lightest disc brake frame that we know of. The Emonda SLR Disc fork is 350g. For 2019 the range is significantly wider.

Complete bikes come stock with wide 28mm tyres although Trek says that you can fit wider tyres for gravel and even adventure riding.

The Emonda SLR Disc is available in nine models from the Emonda SLR Disc eTap at £9,300 to the SLR 6 Disc (Shimano Ultegra, £4,400).

The Emonda SL Disc frame is heavier at 1,149g. The SL 7 Disc, built up with a Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset, is £4,500 while the SL 6 Disc with the mechanical version of Shimano Ultegra is £2,700.

Read more: Trek launches superlight new Emondas.

Giant Propel Disc 2019 — £2,299-£8,999

Giant added disc brakes to its Propel aero road bikes for 2018, and claimed that the flagship model, the Propel Advanced SL Disc, had the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio of any bike in its class and a lower drag coefficient at a wider range of yaw angles than its non-disc-brake predecessor.

“This is because the location of traditional callipers (either in front or behind the fork crown/ legs) creates 'dirty' air,” says Giant. “Opening up the fork crown area (by placing the disc-brake callipers down at the hub) means that the air hitting the new disc-brake calliper has already been disrupted by the leading edge of the tyre/wheel. This effect is further enhanced by an asymmetric fork that helps smooth out airflow over the calliper.”

The 2019 range includes the Propel Advanced 2 Disc at a very reasonable £2,299 and the latest version of the flagship Propel Advanced SL 0 Disc at a rather steeper £8,999.

Giant says that the Propel Disc had a three year development phase involving its engineers, Team Sunweb pro racers and aerodynamics experts at the Aero Concept Engineering facility in Magny-Cours, France.

Find out more about Giant's Propel Disc bikes.

The range features aero wheelsets with different rim depths front and rear, the idea being to reduce drag without compromising control or power transmission; updated frame profiles; and a new combined aero handlebar and stem with internal cable routing.

Read our guide to Giant’s 2018 road bikes
Read our review of the Giant Propel Advanced Disc

3T Strada — £3,600 (frame, fork, headset, seatpost)

3T’s Strada is a new disc-equipped road bike that’s built around wide tyres and a 1x (single chainring, no front derailleur) groupset. It has been developed by Cervelo founder Gerard Vroomen

The Strada uses tubes that are shaped to minimise drag, the down tube being designed to push air around a low-mounted bottle. The transitions at the key junctions (front wheel to down tube and from seat tube to rear wheel) have been reduced as much as possible, which is claimed to further reduce drag.

3T says that going with disc brakes allows it to make its Fundi fork stiffer and provide improved aerodynamics because the crown is closer to the front wheel.

Perhaps the biggest deviation from tradition with the new Strada is the elimination of the front derailleur. 3T reckons that a 1x system gives you all the gears you need with fewer components, lower weight and less drag. The pro teams 3T sponsors don't seems to be 100% convinced, though, so there's now a Strada Due with a front derailleur mount too.

Check out our 3T Strada video with Gerard Vroomen
Read our review of the 3T Strada

Merida Reacto — from £2,000

Merida’s updated Reacto aero road bike is available in both disc brake and rim brake models.

Merida has slimmed down the Reacto’s tubes to improve aero efficiency, introduced a lower seatstay connection with the seat tube and added a one piece cockpit.

Merida also says that it has improved comfort through the redesigned seatstays and given its S-Flex seatpost a slimmer cross section and a bigger ‘window’ – the notch that’s cutaway to add more downward movement.

The disc brake Reactos come with cooler technology like Merida uses on its Sculturas. There’s a forged aluminium component between the brake and the frame/fork that’s designed to allow heat to dissipate through CNC-milled cooling fins. The idea is that this reduces the amount of heat that gets transferred to the carbon-fibre on long descents.

The CF4 version of the disc brake frame uses the RAT (Rapid Axle Technology) first introduced by Focus for quick wheel changes in race situations, while the CF2 version has threaded 12mm thru axles.

Find out more about the 2018 Merida Reactos
Read our review of the Merida Reacto Disc Team-E

BMC Teammachine — £1,900-£12,000

BMC claims a weight of just 815g for the Teammachine's carbon fibre disc brake frame, versus 790g for the rim brake version. The disc frameset has an asymmetric fork to cope with the braking forces.

BMC says that the Teammachine is stiffer, lighter and more compliant than before, but you’d probably have guessed that.

While the new frame bears a resemblance to the previous version, BMC has refined all the tube profiles to balance the stiffness and compliance. It says the bottom bracket area provides more stiffness while the compliance has also been improved for increased seated comfort, thanks in part to newly shaped seat stays creating a compact rear triangle.

The range now starts with an aluminium-framed bike, the Teammachine ALR Disc One with Shimano's new 105 R7000 components for £1,800.

Find out more about the new BMC Teammachine
Read our review of the BMC TeamMachine SLR01 Disc Two

Scott Foil Disc — £3,199-£10,999

Scott’s Foil Disc has a very similar frame to the existing rim brake model but the fork has been completely redesigned to manage the asymmetrical forces of disc brakes and to control the airflow around the front brake. Most notably, the lower sections of the fork come with aero tabs to smooth airflow over the calliper.

That fork comes with internal cable routing and enough clearance for 30mm wide tyres.

The Foil Disc uses 12mm thru axles front and rear. The front axle’s head is 25mm in diameter, the idea being that this larger than normal contact surface between the fork and axle is better able to handle the load coming from the front brake.

Pinarello Dogma F10 Disk — £4,699 (frameset)

Pinarello has released a disc brake version of the bike Chris Froome rode to victory in this year’s to Tour de France, its Dogma F10.

The Dogma F10 Disk frame (don't ask us how it comes to be hovering in the picture) retains features of the rim brake model like flatback stays and a concave down tube that’s designed to shield a water bottle from the airflow. However, the disc version comes with thru axles front and rear, and the lower sections of the Onda F10 fork have ForkFlaps that are designed to improve aerodynamics around the front brake.

A thoroughbred race bike, the Dogma F10 Disk provides enough space for tyres only up to 25mm wide.

Find out more about the Pinarello Dogma F10 Disk.

Cannondale CAAD 12 Disc 2019 — £1,699-£3,499

The CAAD12 is the latest in a long series of well-received aluminium bikes from Cannondale, lighter, stiffer and more comfortable than the CAAD10 and available with or without disc brakes.

Following the popular and likeable CAAD10 was always going to be a tough act, but Cannondale has succeeded not only in retaining the key qualities of the previous model but also improving the ride quality. It's nothing short of marvellous.

The CAAD12 is a finely honed bike with a level of comfort and refinement that makes you wonder why you would spend more. It's so smooth that it outshines many carbon fibre road bikes we've tested over the years.

Read our review of the 2016 Cannondale CAAD12 Disc Dura-Ace.

Bianchi Aria Disc — £2,750-£4,200

Bianchi has unveiled both rim brake and disc brake versions of its Aria aero road bike. The Italian brand already has the Oltre aero road bikes in its range and has only recently launched the Oltre XR3, but the Aria represents a trickle down of Aquila time trial/ triathlon design in a much more affordable, and broader, application.

You get many tried and tested aero features including a seat tube that’s cutaway around the leading edge of the rear wheel, a deeply profiled down tube and a skinny head tube.

Read our review of the Bianchi Aria Disc

Vitus Vitesse Evo CRS Disc Ultegra — £2,599.99

The Vitus Vitesse Evo Disc offers a helluva lot for your money. It’s a carbon fibre, disc brake-equipped road bike built around a race-focused geometry and it offers a superb performance.

The Vitesse Evo Disc offers quick steering and unexpected speed. It's a thrilling and rewarding ride, backed up by decent equipment choices.

The carbon frame has been designed to be stiff through the use of oversized tube profiles and bottom bracket, and a tapered head tube. And it's a success. Stomp on the pedals and there's an intoxicating immediacy to the way it transfers your power that will have you attacking every rise and crest in the pursuit of more speed.

Check out our Vitus Vitesse Evo Disc Ultegra 2017 review

Cervelo R5 Disc — £7,999

The latest version of Cervelo’s R5 is available in a disc brake format.

The R5 has been the brand’s lightest race-ready bike since it was launched in 2013. Where the S-series is focused on aerodynamics and the newer C-series on endurance comfort, the R-series has always been about being the light. Oh, and stiff. Cervelo says that the new R5 is considerably stiffer than the previous version at both the bottom bracket and head tube.

Cervélo has evolved its Squoval tube shapes (rounded square tube profiles) here with Squoval Max, essentially refining each tube profile and to improve stiffness and aero efficiency.

Interestingly, the disc brake frame is actually a little lighter than the rim brake version – 831g versus 850g.

Cervélo has adopted the excellent RAT thru-axles from sister company Focus, allowing for quick wheel changes, and you get enough clearance for 28mm wide tyres.

Read our review of the Cervelo R5 Disc

Colnago V2-R Disc — £3,399.95 (frame, fork, headset & seatpost)

Colnago announced the rim brake version of its new V2-R in June 2017 and then we saw the disc brake version at Eurobike in August of that year.

The Concept is the full-on aero bike in Colnago’s range with the V2-R a lightweight all-rounder with some aero features.

The V2-R retains many of the features of the brand’s V1-R although Colnago claims that both the bottom bracket and headset stiffness have been increased.

Colnago has redesigned the top tube and head tube junction and revised the cable routing, the cables now entering a central port on the top of the down tube.

The V2-R uses the Hexlock thru-axle system that Colnago developed with suspension company Manitou. It's similar to the Focus Rapid Axle Technology in that you part twist the skewer into the opposing dropout before pushing close the lever. It speeds up wheel removal quite a bit.

Find out more about the rim brake version of the Colnago V2-R .

• With elongated tube shapes and other wind-cheating features, aero road bikes provide a small but handy speed boost.

• Sleek shapes make for a distinctive look.

• Recent aero road bikes have alleviated the harsh ride that plagued some early models, thanks to improved use of materials.

• Frame aerodynamics is still a marginal gain; if you're wearing flappy clothes an aero bike is a waste of money.

In just a few years aero road bikes have gone from The Next Big Thing to a mainstream bike option. The latest models have been tweaked to be faster than ever, according to the manufacturers, and to alleviate the harsh ride that characterised some early aero bikes.

Aero road bikes essentially draw aerodynamic features from time trial bikes into a road frame, and balance the demands of weight and stiffness into a package that, on paper, looks to be the ideal all-round choice.

At any decent speed, most of your effort goes into overcoming air resistance, so reducing a bike's drag means you'll go faster, or ride at any given speed with a lower power output. Who doesn't like the sound of that?

Most of your air resistance comes from your body rather than your bike. Wearing non-flappy clothing will help, as will losing weight. But the 20% or so of air resistance from your bike is enough for engineers and designers to focus on making road frames and products more slippery through the air. In the pro peloton aero road bikes have been quickly adopted, where the margins of victory are very slim and there has been a focus on gaining ever smaller performance gains over the years.

Weight, or the lack of it, used to be the main driving force of frame development. Along with stiffness, it was a cornerstones of bike design. These days most bikes are light, many well below the UCI’s 6.8kg weight limit (which doesn’t affect non-racers anyway), and come with more stiffness than is sometimes comfortable.

All that has made aerodynamics more important. Specialized has built its own wind tunnel, for example, and most manufacturers are testing in other facilities. Nevertheless, aero road bikes haven't converged on a perfect, slippery shape. Different engineers prioritise different ways of improving aerodynamics but there are shared design trends: skinny, aerofoil-shaped tubes, integrated brakes, and internal cable routing.

Let's take a look at the latest aero offerings.

Look 795 Blade RS — £2,900 (frameset)

The new Look 795 Blade RS is all about speed, with its design focusing on stiffness and aerodynamics yet without a huge sacrifice to overall comfort. An impressive combination to achieve, and a very nice bike to ride – whether you're racing or just out for a razz.

Look has created a bike that is ruthlessly stiff when you drop the hammer but with next to no road vibration or crass banging or rattling over rough surfaces. The 795 has a beautifully smooth ride quality similar to that of a titanium frame.

This means you can cover a good distance at speed without really noticing it, and even on four to five-hour rides I got off the bike feeling fresher than normal without realising where the time had gone.

Read our review of the Look 795 Blade RS
Find a Look dealer

Orbea Orca Aero 2019 — £2,699-£7,199

The Orca Aero boasts lots of wind-cheating tweaks that Orbea says add up to a 27 watt advantage. Our tester David Arthur found the Orbea Orca Aero M20Team to be "a fast and great handling aerodynamic road bike with a surprising talent for smoothing out all but the roughest roads. But it is speed, not comfort, that is at the top of the list of requirements for an aero road bike, and that's an area where the Orca Aero feels very competent. It's right up there with the Trek Madone, Cervelo S3 and Canyon Aeroad, as super-quick aero race bikes.

"The handling is a highlight, and helps to set it apart from some aero bikes that can be exceedingly quick but a little lacking when it comes to the way they ride and translate your inputs into actions. The Orca Aero is fun and engaging, putting a smile on your face when you're descending or chasing a friend along an undulating ridge road."

You can customise the colour scheme and spec of your Orca Aero too, so if you want to upgrade the wheels, or have yours in pink and orange, fill your boots.

Read our review of the e Orbea Orca Aero M20Team
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Bianchi Aria Disc 2019 — £2,750-£3,200

The new Bianchi Aria Disc is an aero road bike that offers efficiency, sharp handling and a responsive character, now with the additional all-weather assurance of disc brakes – in this case from Campagnolo.

The Aria Disc responds keenly to increased effort. Our 59cm sample wasn't especially light at 8.5kg (18.7lb), but it felt direct when you put in the power, a meaty bottom bracket helping to keep everything solidly in place. The Aria Disc feels as manoeuvrable as the rim brake version, which isn't a surprise given that the geometry is virtually identical. Some bikes designed for aerodynamics offer plenty of straight-line speed but they're a little compromised when you want to flick around. The Aria Disc handles sharply, which gives you options when it comes to darting about a group or avoiding something in the road.

Read our review of the Bianchi Aria Disc
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3T Strada — £3,600 (frame, fork, headset & seatpost)

The 3T Strada has blown us away. It's a truly stunning bike with breathtaking speed, impressive smoothness and fine handling balance. If this is the future, as some people have speculated, we're sold. Take our money, 3T. This is one of the most exciting road bikes available right now.

The Strada certainly won't be for everyone. And that's fine, there are plenty of fantastic performance road bikes currently available if the 1x11 gearing, disc brakes and tight clearances frighten you. None are as radical as the new 3T, though. What the Strada does with its unique design is offer another choice. It achieves the same aim – of being stupendously fast – but takes a different path to get there.

And if you love the Strada but are put off by the requirement to run just a single chainring, 3T has something for you: the £3,700 Strada Due will take a front derailleur so you can run conventional double-chainring gearing.

Read our review of the 3T Strada
Find a 3T stockist

Colnago Concept — £1,999 (frameset)

Colnago has joined the aerodynamic arms race with the Concept, a full blooded aero race bike that is a serious step forward from the Italian company's first aero road bike, the V1-r.

The Concept has all the capability to dice with the fastest in a race situation. Its stiff frame, deep-section wheels and lightweight give it an insatiable appetite for speed. It's quick in all circumstances: climbs, descents, flat and undulating roads – the bike shines everywhere. This is an exciting bike to ride fast, and like all good aero road bikes it encourages you to ride flat-out.

That firm ride, and frame and fork stiffness ensure the Concept accurately follows your inputs, whether through the handlebar or pedals. It reacts positively whether you're blasting an uphill sprint finish or bombing through a curving descent.

The Concept isn't just for racing. It provides adequate composure and comfort, allowing you to tackle long distance rides at a few notches below race pace and not be dealt a hammer-blow to the lower back the moment the tyres encounter anything but a super-smooth surface. The front end of an aero race bike can often be overwhelmingly harsh, but the special headset and fork steerer tube that Colnago has developed mean the Concept is smoother up front than would normally be expected on an aero road bike.

Read our review of the Colnago Concept
Find a Colnago dealer

Merida Reacto 2019 — £1,000-£8,250

Merida has updated its Reacto to be, it says, lighter, more comfortable and more aerodynamically efficient than before. It has done this by slimming down the tube shapes and introducing a lower seatstay connection with the seat tube, among other things.

Merida – a Taiwanese brand although much of its engineering is undertaken in Germany – says that the new Reacto is more aerodynamically efficient than the previous version by about eight watts at 45km/h. That equates to around 5%.

Comfort has been increased through redesigning the seatstays and giving the S-Flex seatpost a slimmer cross section and a bigger ‘window’ – a notch that’s cutaway to allow more downward movement.

For 2018, Merida is offering disc brake versions of the Reacto for the first time.

Read more on the updated Merida Reacto here.
Find a Merida dealer

Boardman Air 9.X — £1,499-£4,499

Boardman's Air 9.2 (£1,749) is just the ticket if you're looking for a fast bike with a good spec. It's a great package and the performance is impressive.

Some aero bikes can be a handful, but thankfully the Air 9.2 is a neutral ride most of the time. Considering the amount of side profile, it's really not that much of a handful in the wind. Okay, our reviewer had a couple of interesting moments getting hit by a 30mph sidewind on one ride, but it's generally pretty predictable.

It's fast, it's firm but not uncomfortable, and it responds well under power. There are a few minor niggles – the brakes aren't the best, and some of the components are worth an upgrade to get the best out of the frame – but if you're looking for a fast bike for racing, triathlon or even time trialling then it's very much one to consider.

Read our review of the Boardman Elite Air 9.2
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Storck Aerfast Platinum — from ~£6,000

Buying the Storck Aerfast Platinum is a massive outlay, but boy, oh boy do you get one hell of a return on your investment. It's a sub-6.5kg race weapon, with aerodynamics that work in the real world, and it offers comfort levels to challenge most endurance bikes.

Taking plenty of things it has learnt from its astonishingly good Aernario, Storck has pushed the design even further down the aerodynamics route, and what it has created in the Aerfast is a bike that's not only unbelievably fast, but light and stiff too.

If you're in the market for an aero bike, speed is going to be topping your list of priorities, and that's where the Aerfast truly excels. At lower speeds the Storck feels like any other bike to ride, any other superlight bike that is, but as you ride faster it feels like a permanent tailwind is nudging you along, a friendly hand on your back as you watch the numbers climb on the Garmin – with little more effort required than there was 5mph ago. It's a wonderful feeling, and one of which you never tire.

Read our review of the Storck Aerfast Platinum
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Cervelo S3 Disc Ultegra Di2 2019 — £5,699

Cervélo has redesigned the S3 Disc to smooth out any penalties that might occur from adding disc brakes. The result is a frame that it claims is 9% stiffer, a touch more aerodynamically efficient, and lighter by 40g compared with the regular rim brake model.

There's a lot to like about the Cervélo S3 Disc. If you want pure speed with the reassurance of hydraulic disc brakes, it's a very good option: it's extremely fast and the handling is lively and direct – just what you want from a race bike – but its composure on rough roads falls some way short of its key rivals. If you're willing to overlook its lack of comfort, it's an explosive bike.

Read our review of the Cervelo S3 Disc Ultegra Di2
Find a Cervelo dealer

Ridley Noah Fast Ultegra Di2 Disc — £7,198

Aero and discs? It's getting more common as bike makers figure out how to mount disc callipers without adversely affecting aerodynamics.

Ridley calls its collection of speed-enhancing aerodynamic features FAST. It includes a tube shape that combines an aerofoil profile with a groove that helps keep the air flowing smoothly over the surface to reduce drag. For 2019 tube shapes have been further refined, there's a new integrated bar, stem and fork system that hides the cables completely, and the fork tips have sprouted 'F-Wings' to improve airflow over disc brakes.

As for the discs, Ridley believes they're simply a better way of stopping.

Read about Greg Henderson's Ridley Noah SL
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Pinarello Dogma F10 — £4,499 (frame & fork)

Developed in collaboration with Team Sky, the Dogma F10 is the bike upon which Chris Froome won the 2017 Tour de France. The F10 uses FlatBack tube profiles – a Kamm tail sort of shape with a rounded leading edge and chopped off tail, and Pinarello has shaped the down tube so that you can mount a water bottle without ruining the aerodynamic performance. Up front the fork is derived from the company’s Bolide time trial bike with aerodynamically shaped legs and a crown that's integrated into a recessed down tube.

Find a Pinarello dealer

Canyon Aeroad CF SLX — £3,899-£6,849

The second-generation Aeroad CF SLX has been inspired by the work that Canyon did on its futuristic Speedmax time trial bike, with razor sharp aero tube profiles and an optional one-piece handlebar and stem. Much of the company’s focus was on reducing the Aeroad's frontal surface area, so along with the new cockpit there’s a narrower hour-glass shaped head tube to help reduce drag. Other changes include a variant of the Trident tube shape used on the Speedmax, and a seat tube that hugs the leading edge of the rear wheel.

The Aeroad CF SLX is available in both rim brake and disc brake models.

Read our review of the Canyon Aeroad CF SLX 7.0 Di2
Read our review of the Canyon Aeroad CF SLX Disc 8.0 Di2
Check out our complete guide to Canyon's road bikes

Specialized S-Works Venge Disc Vias Di2 — £9,000

If you're going to fly, you need to be able to rein in that speed. Disc brakes give finer modulation of speed with less effort at the lever so as you're whooping into Alpine hairpins you can brake later and waste less valuable speed.

As well as its aero frame, the Venge Vias has an aero handlebar and stem. The almost complete lack of external cables further reduces drag.

Read our review of the Specialized Venge Vias Expert Disc
Read about Mark Cavendish's Venge at the Tour de France
Find a Specialized dealer

Scott Foil 2019 — £2,499-£10,999

The Foil arguably kicked off the whole aero road bike trend, bringing aerodynamic design that was once the preserve of time trial bikes to regular road bikes. For 2018, Scott added disc brakes, arguing along with other manufacturers that you can go faster if you can slow down better. That's on top of the last series of updates to the Foil that saw the down tube lowered and wrapped around the fork crown, and a smaller rear triangle and internal seat clamp in the top tube.

Don't make the mistake of thinking this is an uncomfortable aero bike. Mathew Hayman rode over a few little bumps on his way to winning Paris-Roubaix in 2016.

Read our coverage of the 2016 Scott Foil launch
Find a Scott dealer

Trek Madone 2019 — £3,600-£10,000

Once an all-round lightweight race bike, the Madone has had a complete aerodynamic makeover. It features a version of the Isospeed decoupler borrowed from the Domane to provide some comfort and it’s wrapped up in a frame with Kamm tail shaped tubes. Like Specialized, Trek has also developed its own brake callipers that are designed to integrate with the fork and seatstays. The head tube features flaps that open and close to accommodate the movement of the brake when the fork is turned.

For 2019 has a hugely updated Madone road bike with adjustable IsoSpeed (a shock damper at the top tube/seat tube junction), a new geometry and disc brake models. The rim brake version is lighter while the disc brake version has no aerodynamic penalty, according to Trek..

Read our coverage of the 2019 Trek Madone launch
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Giant Propel Advanced SL 0 Disc 2019 — £8,999

Giant has added disc brakes to the Propel Advanced lineup for 2018, claiming that the flagship model, the Propel Advanced SL Disc, has the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio of any bike in its class and a lower drag coefficient at a wider range of yaw angles than the rim brake version.

“One of the key breakthroughs is a new truncated ellipse airfoil shape – a design that lowers drag at a wider range of wind angles than traditional teardrop frame tubing,” says Giant. “Engineers also found that, with proper integration, a disc-brake design can actually improve aero performance compared to rim-brake configurations.”

As well as a stunning paint job, the top of the range Propel Advanced SL 0 Disc has a full Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset and Giant's own SLR 0 Aero Disc wheels with a 42mm deep front rim and 65mm rear.

The Propel disc range starts at £2,999 with the Propel Advanced 1 Disc.

Read our review of the Giant Propel Advanced Disc
Read our review of the Giant Propel Advanced 1
Read our coverage of the original Giant Propel launch
Find a Giant dealer

Lapierre Aircode SL 2019 – £2,499-£6,999

French brand Lapierre gave its Aircode bikes a major update for 2018. The frame profiles were refined, and are now shaped using a combination of NACA and Kamm tail profiles. The down tube, for example, transitions from one to the other to keep drag low while increasing lateral stiffness at the bottom bracket. Other changes include a revised geometry, shorter chainstays and fork rake that has been reduced to bring it closer to the Xelius SL. There's also a new aero seatpost, direct mount brakes and 'TrapDoor technology' whereby the Di2 battery is housed in the down tube for better weight distribution.

Lapierre has integrated the fork crown into the down tube to bring the front wheel closer to the frame. It’s also using a direct mount brake calliper which allows the fork crown height to be lower than with a standard brake.

Read our review of the Lapierre Aircode SL 900 Ultimate​
Read our coverage of the launch of the Lapierre Aircode SL
Find a Lapierre dealer

Bianchi Oltre XR3 2019 – £2,805-£4,699

Bianchi took the Oltre XR2 as its starting point for the XR3's design and then altered many of the tubes and features, resulting in a very different bike. The head tube is new, for example, the aero design fairly similar to that of the XR4, and the seat tube is new too, although it is still cut away around the leading edge of the rear wheel.

The Oltre XR3 features Bianchi's Countervail technology, Countervail being "a patented viscoelastic carbon material with a unique fibre architecture that cancels up to 80% of vibrations while increasing the stiffness and strength of carbon frames and forks", according to Bianchi.

The Oltre XR3 is nimble and sharp handling, and it offers a ride that's smooth by aero road bike standards.

Read our Bianchi Oltre XR3 review
Read our Bianchi Oltre XR3 Disc review
Find a Bianchi dealer

Although there are ever more disc brake-equipped race bikes out there in the shops, most disc brake road bikes produced at the moment are endurance/sportive bikes or all-rounders that are bought by people who simply want the reassurance of all-weather stopping power. The bikes below are a mixture of styles, frame materials and prices so check through and find out what takes your interest.

Check out the hottest disc brake-equipped race bikes

The lines between bike categories have never been more blurred, but we've tried to keep this selection to bikes that are intended entirely or primarily for use on Tarmac. Of course where you ride has as much to do with rider skill as with how fat a tyre your frame will take, but these are bikes for long days in the lanes in sportives, Audaxes, and big rides with friends rather than for exploring dirt roads and trails.

If you want something more versatile, take a look at our guide to the best gravel & adventure bikes, which covers this super-versatile and still-developing category.

Triban RC 520 Disc — £729

Ever since John took the B'Twin Triban 520 Disc road bike for a first ride in London in early October, we've been keen to see if it could stand up to his first impressions, as well as the great value legacy of previous Triban road bikes we've tested. It really does, although riders used to or wanting a racier geometry should look elsewhere.

The geometry thing is a really important point here. With the Triban 520, it's all about a functional position aimed right at tourers and regular commuters at one end of the spectrum, and endurance roadies at the other.

With a super-tall head tube and compact top tube, the bike sits you upright relative to your general entry-level race bike, or even a fair chunk of the endurance-specific market too. It fully justifies its do-it-all tag for everyone except budding racers.

What surprises most about the Triban 520 is just how accessible the ride is; how easy it is to pedal the bike at moderate speeds and feel like you're just cruising along. Cornering in any situation is confidence-inspiring, and it rolls incredibly smoothly too. It takes poor road surfaces in its stride, with a good amount of all-round compliance keeping things comfortable, and as long as you stay in the saddle it climbs moderately well too.

Read our review of the Triban RC 520 Disc

Boardman ASR 8.9 —£1,300

The Boardman ASR, or "all season road", is a really good value package that offers a relaxed ride with the classic looks and feel of steel, the modern convenience of hydraulic discs brakes, and clearance for wide tyres. It does fine duty as an all-weather commuter or as a bike for long day rides. Eating up long, steady miles in comfort is what the ASR does best.

The 8.9 arrives ready for winter, with mudguards fitted to the Reynolds 725 steel frame, 28mm Vittoria tyres, plus reflective frame details ticking all the boxes for commuting through the rough British weather. Remove the mudguards and the bike easily has clearance for wider tyres, so it also fits the bill for summer towpath pootling and brief gravel forays. There's a full Shimano 105 groupset here with hydraulic disc brakes, and Boardman's own bar and tubeless-ready wheels, so with, say, 28mm road tyres like Schwalbe Ones it's as capable an Audax or club-run bike as it is a commuter.

Read our review of the Boardman ASR 8.9
Find a Boardman dealer

Canyon Endurace — £1,249-£5,899

Canyon's wildly popular Endurace bikes went disc-equipped a couple of years ago, and are all the better for it. The models span one the biggest price ranges here, from £1,169 for the Shimano Tiagra-equipped Endurace Wmn 7.0 AL Disc up to the £6,249 Endurace CF SLX Disc 9.0 Ltd with SRAM eTap wireless shifting and DT Swiss carbon fibre wheels.

Read our review of the Canyon Endurace CF SLX 9.0

BMC Roadmachine — £2,700-£12,000

BMC’s Roadmachines are disc-braked fast endurance machines with room for at least 28mm tyres. The range includes aluminium and carbon fibre frames, with a range of equipment from Shimano Tiagra to SRAM Red eTap, and the latest version of the eTap-equipped Roadmachine 01 ONE is probably the most expensive production bike you can currently buy at £12,000.

Find out more about BMC’s Roadmachine range here
Find a BMC dealer

Focus Paralane 2019 — £1,659-£4,099

​The six-bike Paralane range starts with the £1,659 aluminium-framed Paralane 6.9 with Shimano 105 components and goes up to the £4,099 carbon-framed Paralane 9.9 with Shimano Ultegra Di2. Long-ride features include comfort-enhancing tube profiles and carbon layup, a skinny seatpost and 28mm tyres, that together provide a smooth ride that is up there with the best in this category. It isolates you from the worst road buzz but without completely detaching you from the road entirely. It's a really good balance for those who want some feedback from the surface without being shaken to pieces.

Read our review of the Focus Paralane Ultegra
Find a Focus dealer

Whyte Wessex — £1,999-£4,499

Fast and sporty, with all the practicality and dependability of hydraulic disc brakes, wide tyres and space for full-length mudguards, the Whyte Wessex is a bike that is up to the task of taking on the roughest roads and toughest weather.

If you put racing to one side, it's all the bike you really need for year-round riding in the UK, fast enough for sportives and pacy training runs, comfortable and reliable for grinding out winter miles, and at home on longer commutes. Only a British company could design a bike that is absolutely, perfectly, 100 per cent suited to the demands of year-round UK road cycling.

Read our review of the Whyte Wessex
Find a Whyte dealer

Giant Contend SL Disc — £999-£1,249

The Giant Contend SL Disc bikes feature an Aluxx SL frameset, D-Fuse seatpost that’s designed to add comfort and Giant Conduct hydraulic disc brakes. You get mechanical shifters with a cable to hydraulic converter at the front of the stem. It's a nifty solution to avoiding the (more expensive) Shimano shifters but the jury's out on the aesthetics of the converter.

Check out our first look at the Giant Contend SL range
Read our guide to Giant’s 2019 range
Find a Giant dealer

Wilier Cento10NDR 2019 — £7,999

Wilier’s Cento10NDR endurance road bike is designed to take either rim brakes or disc brakes – you get mount points for both. It also features what’s called an ‘Actiflex’ system on the rear triangle with stays that flex, a pivot at the top of the seatstays and an elastomer shock damper, the idea being to provide a few millimetres of rear wheel travel in order to isolate the rider from the ground and add comfort.

The chainstays are bonded to the bottom bracket shell in the usual way, the Actiflex system relying, as the name suggests, on flex in the stays in order to work.

The dropouts of both the frame and fork are replaceable so you can run the bike with standard quick release skewers or 142 x 12mm thru axles.

Find out more about the Wilier Cento10NDR here
Find a Wilier dealer

Trek Domane Disc — £2,350-£8,750

Trek’s Domane range includes different framesets in aluminium and carbon fibre, and all of the disc-equipped models feature an IsoSpeed decoupler that allows the seat tube to move relative to the top tube and seatstays, so the saddle can move downwards (and a little backwards), providing more give and adding comfort to the ride.

More expensive models get a front IsoSpeed system designed to increase comfort and control, along with adjustment to the rear IsoSpeed decoupler. A lot of technology goes into keeping you comfortable!

Read our guide to Trek’s 2019 road bike range here
Have a look at the Trek Domane here
Find a Trek dealer

Specialized Roubaix £2,600-£10,000

Specialized’s carbon-fibre Roubaix bikes feature a suspension damper housed in the top of the head tube that aims to isolate the handlebar from bumps and cobbles. It's called Future Shock, provides up to 20mm of suspension travel and can be adjusted to suit different rider weights.

The Roubaix is a disc-only bike these days, uses thru-axles front and rear, and has space for fairly fat tyres.

Specialized has just announced a major revamp of the Roubaix platform, with a new adjustable suspension unit in the steerer, a lighter frame, and clearance for 33mm tyres, among other improvements.

Check out Specialized’s 2019 road bike range here
Find a Specialized dealer

Cannondale Synapse Disc — £850-£7,800

Cannondale offers both aluminium and carbon-fibre versions of its Synapse endurance bike. The cheapest of the aluminium models is just £849.99, built up with Shimano’s dependable Sora groupset and Promax mechanical disc brakes.

At the other end of the range, the Synapse Hi-Mod Disc with Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 components is priced at £7,799.99.

Read our coverage of the Cannondale Synapse Disc launch
Read our review of the £2,699 2016 Cannondale Synapse Ultegra Disc
Find a Cannondale dealer

Scott Addict Disc — £1,649-£3,599

Scott’s carbon fibre Addict Disc bikes are built to an endurance geometry and they’re said to be both lighter and stiffer than the Solace models that they replace. They come with 32mm wide tyres for plenty of comfort. All six models — three men's and three women's — use Shimano hydraulic disc brakes.

Find a Scott dealer

Rose Team GF 4 Disc — from £1,995.74-£3,720.13

The Team GF 4 Disc takes over from the Xeon CDX in Rose’s lineup and is designed for long distances rides like sportives. The carbon frame comes with a claimed weight of just 990g, which is very light for a bike of this kind. You get to choose from six different Shimano and SRAM builds.

Lapierre Sensium Disc— £1,799-£2,749

The Sensium, available in both disc and rim brake models, comes with a carbon-fibre frame that’s built to an endurance geometry designed to be comfortable throughout long days in the saddle.

The more affordable of the two disc models, the Senium 500 Disc, features a Shimano 105 groupset while the Sensium 600 Disc makes the step up to Ultegra.

Find a Lapierre dealer

J. Laverack J.ACK Disc £3,650-£6,950

Yeah, you could have carbon, but in some people's eyes, it will never look as good as titanium.

There is also something fantastic about having a bike built just for you, your riding style and what you intend to use the bike for. With custom head badge options, eyelets and shot blasted graphics on top of that, the J.ACK becomes part bike, part work of art.

J.Laverack also works with the likes of Hope, Hunt and Brooks to make the bike brilliantly British.

Check out our review of the J.Laverack R J.ACK III

Check out 12 of 2018’s hottest disc brake-equipped race bikes

If you have £1,000 to £1,500 to spend on a road bike, you really do get a lot for you money. A benefit of spending this sort of money is that the bikes start to get much lighter than those costing half as much, which will have a significant impact on the ride quality and performance, and your times up your local hills.

Shimano 105 and Tiagra are the dominant groupsets in this price range. While there is a lot of own-brand kit for parts like wheels, handlebars and saddles, which is no bad thing (manufacturers have really raised their game with own label components), there is a lot more branded kit from the likes of Mavic and Fizik.

You'll typically find yourself making a decision between an aluminium frame (which range between very good and superb in this price range) with a groupset such as Shimano 105 or a carbon frame with Shimano Tiagra. Which you go for will depend, among other things, on whether you're a parts upgrader or a bike replacer when it comes to future developments.

We're also starting to see some intriguing, innovative thinking in this price range, like the fat-tyred, single chainring Road Plus Whyte Glencoe, if you fancy something more than a bit different.

Pinnacle Arkose R2 — £1,250

The Pinnacle Arkose R2 is a great option if you're looking for a versatile aluminium adventure, commuter or winter bike (or indeed all three at once) that is well specced for the price.

Pinnacle has been making the Arkose for a number of years. It was originally created off the back of a cyclo-cross design, and has become more of an adventure/gravel bike over time. It's an excellent all-rounder.

Read our review of the Pinnacle Arkose 3

Planet X Pro Carbon EVO Shimano 105 R7000 — £1,000

The Planet X Pro Carbon has always been a popular entry-level carbon fibre bike, but it was looking a bit dated. This new version corrects that with modern lines, a new lay-up, and tapered steerer, among other changes, and it's currently available with Shimano's 105 R7000 groupset for the frankly amazing price of a thousand quid.

B’Twin Ultra 900 CF 105 — £1,299.99

The Ultra CF 900 is further evidence, if any was needed, that B'Twin knows how to build awesome-riding race bikes which offer excellent stiffness, handling and speed while also managing to be unbelievably comfortable. Bung in a sub-£1.5k price tag for a full-carbon frame and fork, Shimano 105 groupset and Mavic wheels, and it really is an exciting package.

With its 'UCI approved for racing' logo on the top tube and its geometry, I was really expecting the Ultra CF 900 to be a no-nonsense speed machine, sacrificing comfort for performance, especially when you take into account those huge tube profiles. In use, though, it is completely the opposite.

The ride is sublime, absorbing pretty much everything the road surface can chuck at it, so you just waft along at a very impressive pace, smashing mile after mile without effort.

This bike is now also known as the Van Rysel RR 900 CF, with the latest Shimano 105 R7000 components and in a full range of sizes.

Read our review of the B’Twin Ultra 900 CF 105

Boardman ASR 8.9 — £1,300

The Boardman ASR, or "all season road", is a really good value package that offers a relaxed ride with the classic looks and feel of steel, the modern convenience of hydraulic disc brakes, and clearance for wide tyres.

The 8.9 arrives ready for winter, with mudguards fitted to the frame, 28mm Vittoria tyres, plus reflective frame details ticking all the boxes for commuting through the rough British weather. Remove the mudguards and the bike easily has clearance for wider tyres, so it also fits the bill for summer towpath pootling and brief gravel forays.

Riding over rough stuff on my cycle path commute was generally a breeze, and the only real 'problem' I had with it was manoeuvrability. While the stem is shortened in an attempt to make the steering springier, I did find the ASR a bit sluggish when trying to corner quickly, which I'll put down to the relaxed angles of the frame and longer top tube making the bike quite slow to respond.

It does make for really stable handling, though, and it's not really designed to be aggressively chucked around; it's more about finesse than fast and furious. Eating up long, steady miles in comfort is what the ASR does best, and as someone who's prone to head out for a run or carry on riding if the weather's okay when I get home, it was ideal for a period of building base fitness in early spring.

Read our review of the Boardman ASR 8.9

Whyte Glencoe — £1,299

Whyte's Glencoe is a 650B-wheeled Road Plus bike that brings together a lot of the emerging trends in the road bike market into a really compelling package that will appeal to anyone wanting a smooth, comfortable, stable and confidence-inspiring road bike.

The Glencoe combines an aluminium frame and fork rolling on wide profile WTB tubeless-ready rims and WTB Horizon 47mm tyres, and the stop and start are taken care of by an SRAM Apex 1x11 groupset, with an 11-42t cassette and 44T chainring, and TRP HyRd hydraulic disc brakes with 160mm rotors. The finishing kit is all Whyte branded, including the 50cm wide handlebar that is unique to the Glencoe. Yes at 11.56kg (25.48lb) it’s heavy, but weight isn’t everything.

Read our review of the Whyte Glencoe
Find a Whyte dealer

Giant Contend SL Disc 1 2019 — £1,249

Giant has two families of endurance bikes, the Defy series with carbon fibre frames and disk brakes throughout the range, and the Contend bikes with aluminium frames and a choice of discs or rim brakes. This is the top model in the six-bike Contend family. It has Shimano's excellent-value Shimano 105 11-speed transmission, and Giant's own hydraulic disc brakes. We liked the rim-braked 2017 version, but thought it could use better brakes.

Read our review of the Giant Contend SL1
Find a Giant dealer

Ribble CGR — £1,399

Cross, Gravel, Road, that's what the CGR initials stand for on Ribble's latest all-rounder. A disc brake-equipped, mudguard-shod 'do a bit of everything' machine that makes a lot of sense for the rider who doesn't always want to stick to the tarmac. Thankfully, this jack of all trades is no master of none.

Thanks to Ribble's online bike builder, you can have any spec you like. The CGR starts from £799 with Shimano Sora; the price here is for the option with Shimano 105 and hydraulic brakes, which gives a good combination of slick shifting and powerful stopping.

Read our review of the Ribble CGR

Cannondale CAAD12 105 2019 — £1,400

When it was launched the CAAD12 set a new benchmark for all-aluminium frames; it still puts a lot of carbon bikes to shame. With a frame weight under 1,100g for the disc brake and regular versions, it's not much heavier than carbon either. Cannondale package the frame with a full Shimano 105 groupset, carbon fibre fork with tapered steerer tube, 52/36 crank, Mavic Aksium wheels and a Selle Royal Seta S1 saddle. You can also have it with disc brakes for an extra £300.

Read our report from the CAAD12 launch
Find a Cannondale dealer

Canyon Ultimate CF SL 7.0 — £1,449

German company Canyon has made quite an impression in the UK with its direct-to-consumer business model meaning big savings for those prepared to bypass the bike shop for their next bike purchase. The Ultimate CF SL is produced using the same mould as that the Ultimate CF SLX we tested a while ago, it's just using a cheaper carbon fibre. That keeps the price lower. Although the weight does go up a bit, it's still light at a claimed 940g. This is the entry-level model built with a full Shimano 105 groupset, Mavic Aksium wheels, Continental GP 4000 25mm tyres, Canyon's own bars and stem and a Fizik Antares saddle.

Trek Émonda ALR 5 2019 — £1,350

This bike has at its heart the aluminium version of Trek's lightweight Émonda platform, equipped with Shimano's new 105 R7000 groupset.

The Emonda line is Trek's take on making the lightest road bikes it can produce for a given price, which means the frame here is worth upgrading as the parts wear out; it wouldn't be shamed by a Shimano Ultegra groupset.

Find a Trek dealer

Rose Pro SL Disc 105 — £1,405.82

German direct-sales operation Rose has some very keenly priced bikes, like this disc-braked sportive/endurance model that boasts an aluminium frame with room for 28mm tyres, and a full Shimano 105 groupset with hydraulic brakes. When he reviewed the next bike up in the range, the Ultegra-equipped Rose Pro SL Disc 3000, Stu Kerton said "Thanks to its neutral handling and impressive build spec, the Pro SL is the ideal steed for a day in the saddle with no surprises."

Read our review of the Rose Pro SL Disc 3000 Hydraulic

You’ve an abundance of riches in the £1,500 to £2,000 price band, with bikes that are light, well-equipped and great value for money.

You also have a big range of choices. Carbon fibre frame, or the latest ultra-sophisticated aluminium? Caliper brakes or discs? Racing geometry, more upright for comfort or something in between? How about taking the the byways and bridleways on a gravel bike? Whatever type of riding you have in mind, there’s a bike in this price range that’ll suit you perfectly.

Vitus Energie CRX — £1,419.99

The Vitus Energie CRX cyclo-cross bike is an absolute blast to ride thanks to sharp, fun handling along the trails or around tight, technical muddy circuits. It's great for a day out on the gravel, and you can chuck mudguards on it too if you fancy a high-speed, year-round commuter.

If you want to ride fast off-road without the benefits of suspension then this Vitus is one of the best bikes to have a play on. The racy geometry and low-slung position mean you can really get down and drop that centre of gravity to benefit the handling when the terrain is tough, and the way it responds to the slightest shift in body weight is very impressive.

Read our review of the Vitus Energie CRX

Cube Attain GTC SL Disc — £1,899 (limited sizes)

How does Cube manage to make a carbon fibre endurance bike with Ultegra equipment and hydraulic discs for under £2,000? Well, they've swapped out the Ultegra brakes and shifters for 105 R7000 units, which saves a bunch on the price tag without substantial detriment to performance.

The Attain GTC SL Disc is very much a mile-eating all-rounder, with clearance for mudguards so you can keep going through winter without getting drenched.

Find a Cube dealer

Van Rysel RR 920 CF Ultegra — £1,999.99

You don't get many bikes in this price range with Shimano Ultegra R8000 components and with its superb frame and Mavic Cosmic carbon wheels that makes this eminently raceable speedster superb value for money.

When he tested the 105-equipped version, which has the same frame, Stu Kerton said it was "further evidence, if any was needed, that B'Twin knows how to build awesome-riding race bikes which offer excellent stiffness, handling and speed while also managing to be unbelievably comfortable." Decathlon has since rebranded these bikes as Van Rysel, but the sentiment reminds solid.

Read our review of the B’Twin Ultra 900 CF

Cannondale CAAD12 105 Disc 2019 — £1,700

Proving that composites don't quite reign supreme, Cannondale's meticulously engineered CAAD12 frame wrings every last gram of performance potential out of aluminium. Cannondale combines that frame with Shimano 105 shifting, its own HollowGram Si chainset and Shimano 105 hydraulic disc brakes for a thoroughly modern fast road bike.

Find a Cannondale dealer

Giant Defy Advanced 2 2019 —  £1,695

Giant's Defy line is one of the most popular bikes in the endurance and sportive sector, and is the company's best-selling model, combining smart geometry with a full range of competitively priced builds. It's been revamped for 2019 with a frame that will take up to 32mm tyres, some tweaks to the cable routing, and the addition of Giant's new D-Fuse buzz-reducing handlebar.

The 2019 Defy bikes also get tubeless-ready wheels and 28mm tyres, and the Defy Advanced 2 has Shimano's new 105 R7000 shifting with an 11-34 cassette for a 1:1 low gear.

Read our review of the Giant Defy Advanced SL
Read our review of the Giant Defy Advanced 3
Find a Giant dealer

Trek Émonda SL5 2019 — £1,800

Part of Trek's line of Émonda lightweight race bikes, the SL5 demonstrates one of two approaches to speccing up a bike in this range. Trek takes the second-lightest of its Émonda frames and equips it with Shimano's midrange 105 group for a bike that doesn't cost the earth but has plenty of upgrade potential.

Read our review of the Trek Emonda SL5
Find a Trek dealer

Genesis Datum 10 — £1,999.99

The Genesis Datum 10 will take pretty much whatever you can throw at it, on or off-road. The spec represents excellent value and the ability to jump between town and country use positions it as a sound contender for an 'only bike' that you won't be sheepish about getting muddy on, while being worthy of a shine-up for the Sunday morning group ride.

At launch two years ago, Dave rated the Di2 11-speed Datum 30 at 4.5/5, finding it a 'hugely capable bike that is loads of fun over all sorts of terrain'. Later that year it won our Sportive Bike of The Year Award, with only the Shimano Di2-influenced price holding it back from taking overall honours. At £3,200 in 2015 money, the Di2 version was a hefty price to pay, so this time around it's the base model £1,899 10-speed Tiagra model on test. Again, for this spec it's not a class-leadingly cheap bike, but the overall package is worthy of inclusion on anyone's to-be-considered list.

Read our review of the Genesis Datum 10
Find a Genesis dealer

Canyon Endurace CF SL Disc 7.0 2019 — £1,699

It's always worth checking out what Canyon has to offer, and this combination of the light, quick but comfortable Endurace CF SL frame and Shimano 105 components is decent value, and — if the women's equivalent is any guide — a superb all-day mile-eater. And the 2019 model is £100 cheaper than last years!

Read our review of the Canyon Endurace WMN CF SL Disc 8.0

Merida Silex 600 2019 — £1,700

Merida's dramatic take on the gravel bike genre is as close as a bike gets to being a mountain bike without becoming the bailiwick of our sister site off.road.cc. It has the long head tube and top tube that's a feature of many contemporary mountain bikes, and single-chainring gearing. It keeps its feet on the Tarmac with 35mm tyres, but if you wanted to get adventurous there's room to go plenty bigger.

Read our review of the Silex 600's carbon fibre big brother, the Merida Silex 9000
Find a Merida dealer

Raleigh Mustang Comp — £1,200

With Raleigh's aluminium-framed Mustangs, carbon Rokers and steel Mavericks the Big Heron jumped into gravel bikes with both boots a couple of years ago. Raleigh's folks say they started revamping their endurance road range, then realised that for a lot of British riding a bike with a long wheelbase and fat tyres was better able to cope with back roads trashed by the combination of bad winters and hacked road maintenance budgets. The Mustang Comp has SRAM hydraulic brakes and 11 speed SRAM Apex 1 gears.

Find a Raleigh dealer

Boardman SLR 9.2 Ultegra — £1,799

If you want to put that race licence to good use, smash those Strava KOMs or just want a fast, comfortable, easy-to-ride road bike, then the Boardman SLR 9.2 needs to be on your shortlist. With a full-carbon frameset, Shimano Ultegra R8000 groupset, and Boardman's own tubeless-compatible wheels, the SLR is a real contender even before you take the price into account – and that challenges even the direct-to-consumer specialists.

Read our review of the Boardman Road Pro Carbon SLR

Rose Team GF 4 Disc 105 — £1,995.74

Rose claims an impressive 7.9kg for the Team GF 4 Disc 105 and given that its predecessor the Xeon CDX-4400 comes in at 7.5kg (16.6lb), we believe it. The ride is quick, easy to live with and delivers a lot of fun miles. It's a cracker of a machine ready to be ridden flat out or cruising the lanes.

Read our review of the Rose Xeon CDX-4400

Tubeless wheelsets have become way more popular recently, thanks especially to the growing number of tubeless tyres out there these days, and here are some of the best that we've reviewed for over a grand.

Check out 10 of the best tubeless wheelsets for under £1,000

A tubeless system is essentially a clincher tyre inflated onto a rim without an inner tube. Instead, an airtight chamber is created with a tubeless-specific tyre, developed with a special bead and a compatible rim. 

One big advantage is the substantially reduced risk of puncturing, as long as you use liquid sealant inside the tyre and keep it topped up. If the tyre is punctured, the sealant plugs the hole. The tyre might suffer a small drop in pressure if you puncture, but the sealant will deal with most small holes caused by flint and thorns, allowing you to keep riding.

If you want to go tubeless you need the right wheels, and here are 10 of the best, some for rim brakes and some for discs. They've all been awarded an overall of score of at least 8 out of 10 in road.cc reviews.

Clicking on the name of each wheelset will take you to a dealer.

Hunt 30 Carbon Dynamo Disc £1,059 

These Carbon 30 Disc Dynamo wheels are excellent. The rim is 30mm deep, made from unidirectional T24/30 carbon fibre with the spoke holes reinforced with a 3K weave. It's a reasonably wide profile, with a 27mm external width and a 21mm internal profile. 

The wheels came with tubeless rim tape fitted, and a hole for the valve. Fitting Schwalbe G-One Speeds was easy. Our review pair came tightly built and true, and they stayed that way during testing. With 28 spokes front and rear they're built for bikepacking and ultra-distance rather than fully loaded touring; Hunt recommends a 115kg limit for rider and luggage. 

The SON Delux dynamo is specifically designed for road riding. It weighs just 395g and when turned off generates just 0.4W of drag, barely more than a standard front hub. The efficiency is rated at 65%, and the dynamo outputs 3W of power at 20km/h, so to power your lights or your USB charger you can expect to be putting less than 5W into the system. We used the dynamo with a Busch & Muller IQ-X front light and a Supernova E3 rear, getting easily enough power to light the way. 

At the rear Hunt is using its 4Season Disc hub that has extra shielding for the EZO cartridge bearings inside. Both front and rear hubs use standard J-bend spokes which should be fairly easy to find a replacement for if you pop one out on tour. The wheels come with two spares of each length to take with you too, plus a spoke key, 6-bolt adaptors for the Centerlock disc mounts, tubeless rim tape (fitted) and tubeless valves.

Overall these wheels are excellent. They're light and well built, the front dynamo is as good as they come for road riding and the rear hub has been great too. They're sensibly built, come with spares, and are set up for the long haul. 

Read our review 
Buy from Hunt 

Reynolds ATR X 650B £1,105 

The original ATR rim was a chunky affair, and this design (called the ATR 2 when we reviewed it, but having since be renamed) is even wider: 23mm internally and 32mm externally, with a depth of 40mm. The bulbous profile follows the developments in aero wheel technology that are pushing towards increasingly toroidal designs, but Reynolds doesn't make any particular aero claims for this wheelset.

You get 24 spokes front and rear; that's not much for an all-purpose wheelset like this, but one of the main benefits of a carbon rim is that it's laterally stiffer for the same weight, meaning that the spoke count can be reduced.

If you're heading off to terrain that's more challenging, especially with a loaded bike, then carbon does still have advantages over alloy for its impact resistance. 

These ATR wheels were easy to set up tubeless. Ours came fitted with rim tape and were supplied with valves. The 40mm Schwalbe G-Ones went up first time; bigger tyres that were a baggier fit required a couple of extra wraps of tape to tighten things up, but we got them sealed just fine.

Our test wheels came fitted a Shimano 11-speed freehub. You can also have an XD driver if you want a wider cassette, or a Campagnolo freehub. 

The disc mount is Centerlock and these wheels come set up with 12mm axles front and rear. You can run the front as a 15mm axle; those end caps come with the wheels. If you want to run quick releases then QR end caps are available separately.

We had a very positive experience with these wheels. As a 650B wheelset, they're not necessarily overpriced considering the materials and build quality (and lifetime warranty), but you might question whether, for riding on the road with big tyres, a carbon rim has enough of a benefit over alloy to justify the inevitable price difference. It'll depend on what you're planning. If your riding takes you to genuinely technical terrain, or you're riding a loaded bike, or both, the extra stiffness and impact resistance of a carbon rim will be useful. If you're looking for more comfort on the road then the performance is great, but the price hike less justified.

Read our review
Find a Reynolds dealer

Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless DT 350 £1,159.99

These Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless Ready wheels are seriously good for their price tag. They're stable in strong winds, quick to spin up to speed and also quick to stop. What's more, you get great hubs and high-end pads. It's a great package.

This full carbon wheelset comes in at a very respectable 1,450g. The rims are 26mm wide externally, laced to the brilliant DT Swiss 350 hubs with DT Aerolite spokes.

Those hubs are pretty bombproof. While these wheels were used in mostly dry conditions, we've had these hubs on wheels that have seen some horrendous weather; they're solid and don't require much attention. While we're on reliability, we had zero spoke tension issues even after a few big hits in races.

At 45mm deep, these strike a great balance between speed, quick acceleration and handling. They don't pick up strong winds which is probably down to the blunt profile at the leading and trailing edges. 

One of the attractions of this set of wheels is what you get for your money. They come in a well-padded double wheel bag with a zippered storage compartment containing brake pads and skewers. You also get a set of tubeless valves.

Read our review
Find a Fast Forward dealer 

Giant SLR 0 42mm £1,379.48 

The Giant SLR 0 42mm wheels are an ideal all-round go-faster set of hoops. The rims are wide, feel fast and handle well. The hubs are simple to service, quiet and robust. They performed excellently during testing in my mix of hilly races, flat criteriums and general riding with good braking and stability in crosswinds. 

The 42mm-deep full-carbon rims are tubeless ready and the spokes are DT Aerolites – straight-pull with internal nipples. This gives a very clean build, although one that isn't so easy for maintenance. Not that it will matter, for a while at least, as the wheels were perfectly straight out of the box and remained that way.

The hubs are Giant branded, with DT Swiss 240 internals. This is a great balance between performance and reliability with easy maintenance.

We didn't find these wheels hard to handle in windy conditions. In fact, they felt very stable. The wheels also feel zippy when climbing thanks to the respectable weight: 629g front and 791g rear, giving a total of 1,420g. Weight isn't everything, though. We were also impressed with the lateral stiffness. 

Overall, we were impressed with these Giant wheels because they're a great option if you want one wheelset for racing and general riding. 

Read our review 
Find a Giant dealer 

DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline 65 £1,120.00

The DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline clincher wheels have deep section 65mm rims for aerodynamic efficiency, they're well made and come with excellent internals.

The rim is a NACA shape with a fairly blunt profile, although the PRCs are in no way bulbous like Zipps, for example. The PRCs can be a little hard to handle on some gusty, blustery days, but this is rare – and not much different from any other wheels of a similar depth. 

The PRC wheels use DT Swiss's well-respected 240 hubs. The freehub features a ratchet system (rather than standard pawls). Springs push two 36-tooth star ratchets together to engage when you pedal, all of the teeth engaging at the same time in just 10 degrees. This system works really well and durability is excellent.

The wheels feel stiff in use, so you can set your brake pads very close to the rim without danger of rubbing when you corner hard or ride out of the saddle.

Braking in dry conditions is good – progressive without any grabbing – and braking in the wet, although not exceptional, is sure and confident. 

You get tubeless tape and tubeless valves as part of the package (along with RWS Steel quick releases and SwissStop Black Prince brake pads). Setting them up tubeless is easy enough. 

You are getting some seriously good wheels for your money here. Granted, these don't offer quite the aero performance of DT Swiss's ARC 1100 Dicut wheels but the PRCs feature excellent components, they're stiff, braking is good and, for their depth, they feel pretty stable in most conditions. This is a reliable high-performance wheelset that puts in a great performance in a variety of conditions.

Read our review 
Find a DT Swiss dealer 

Roval CLX 50 Disc £1,850

Fast, light and wide, these tubeless carbon disc brake wheels offer excellent performance.

The aim for the new Roval CLX 50 was to marry the aero performance of the deeper section CLX 64 with the lightness of the shallower CLX 32. At 1,415g with a 50mm-deep rim and disc brake hubs, they appear to have achieved that objective. This is a very attractive weight in a hugely competitive wheel market. 

It's a full carbon fibre construction, tubeless ready and available in disc or rim brake versions, with a wide and bulbous profile rim. Internal rim width is 20.7mm, external is 29.4mm, ensuring wider tyres are happily accommodated; between 22 and 47mm can be used. 

The clincher rims are tubeless-ready, using a hookless bead design that is favoured by a few other wheel brands, and claimed to provide a stronger rim with less weight.

At the centre of the wheels are new hubs designed to minimise drag. That accounts for the smooth shape. Inside the hubs are DT Swiss 240 internals with upgraded CeramicSpeed bearings. DT Swiss also supplies the Aerolite spokes.

These wheels are superbly fast in a straight line and maintain excellent momentum when you're really pushing hard on the pedals. They're also tough and dependable. They easily shrug off bad road surfaces; we've smashed into potholes and ridden them along gravel tracks and they've taken all the punishment with no sign of loose spokes or going out of true.

They're smooth and comfortable for a deep-section wheelset, something you really appreciate when riding along a washboard or chattery surface, where the rapid vibrations can easily unsettle an otherwise smooth ride, and especially if you head off onto gravel or dirt roads. 

The Rovals handle winds superbly. The rounded rim profile provides exceptionally good stability with little sign of buffeting even in the strongest gusts.

Read our review 
Find a Roval dealer 

Mavic Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST £1,899.00 

Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST wheels make tubeless technology truly nothing to fear, with all the benefits attached. These are very capable performance all-rounders.

Compared to the previous model, these wheels come with a re-engineered, deeper rim bed with an additional lip to create a secure tubeless seal, and specially designed Yksion Pro tyres to fit this new design.

The rim has an external width of 25mm rim, an internal width of 17mm and a 40mm depth, with a NACA-inspired profile. The excellent iTgMax laser brake track treatment improves the braking performance.

These wheels excel in pretty much any conditions – including gusty winds, where they stay remarkably stable. On climbs they're stiff as you like and they'll slice through valley headwinds.

Although not quite the performance-value proposition they used to be back when they were clinchers, Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL USTs are still competitive, while boasting arguably the easiest-to-install tubeless interface around.

Read our review
Find a Mavic dealer 

Bontrager Aeolus XXX 4 TLR Clincher Road £1,999.98

Bontrager's Aeolus XXX 4 TLR clincher wheels are stiff, lightweight and steady in use and offer good braking in both wet and dry conditions. This is a great all-round aero wheelset that's suitable for a wide variety of conditions.

The rim shape is completely new, developed using CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software and wind tunnel testing. The external width at the brake track is 27mm while the internal width is to 21mm, offering plenty of support for the 25mm tyres for which these wheels are optimised. Bontrager says that the Aeolus XXX 4 has lower drag than the Zipp 303 NSW at all yaw angles from 0-17.5°, with the Zipp slightly lower at 20°.

The wheelset is lightweight considering the rim depth, ours coming in at 1,420g for the pair. The focus here is more on aerodynamics, but you're never going to turn down a saving.

The Aeolus XXX 4 TLRs are stiff and stable. Crosswinds do have an effect, but it's not massive considering the 47mm rim depth and there's none of that twitchiness that you get with some aero rims.  The Aeolus XXX 4 TLRs have behaved well on super-windy rides recently. Crosswinds do have an effect, of course, but it's not massive considering the 47mm rim depth and, even more important to my mind, the wheels behave predictably. There's none of that twitchiness that you get with some.

Bontrager has introduced a new feature to the rim brake versions of its Aeolus XXX wheels called a Laser Control Track. Automated laser machining 'roughens the brake track to an optimised level that maximises braking performance when used with SwissStop Black Prince pads (which come as part of the package). Braking performance is noticeably better than before, especially in wet conditions.

All of Bontrager's XXX models are tubeless-ready, coming with the necessary rim strips, valve stems and sealant refill kit.

Read our review
Find a Bontrager dealer 

Knight 35 Tubeless £2,000.00

The Knight 35 wheels are fast; they are also stiff, reliable and stable. 

The 35s come with DT Swiss 240 hubs, which are brilliant. With cartridge bearings and easy servicing, they should last for ages. 

Spokes are Sapim's CX Rays. One thing that slightly annoyed our reviewer was the use of internal nipples. Yes, it looks clean but should you ping these out of true thanks to a pothole, it's more of a hassle to get them straight again.

Although the wheelset isn't superlight – ours came in at 1,590g with rim tape and skewers installed – the weight is still pretty low, and translates to a nippy feel. It's very easy to get these wheels up to speed and then increase that speed, especially when climbing. 

The 35s are the shallowest section wheels that Knight offers. The rim profile is somewhere between a 'V' shape and a 'U'. This gives the rim an external width of 25mm, sitting very nicely with wider tyres. 

The brake track is engineered with a 3mm brake surface for improved heat dissipation in an attempt by Knight to combat brake fade and even blow-outs on long descents. The braking is smooth and consistent. While stopping still isn't as good as aluminium rims, there is room for improvement in the form of softer brake pads; those supplied are quite hard. That does mean they'll last quite a while, but we were quick to swap in a softer pad for better power.

Overall, the Knight 35s offer a very good package for a shallow carbon clincher. 

Read our review 
Buy from Sigma Sport 

Edco Brocon Disc £2,900

The new Edco Brocon Disc Brake wheelset pushes the boundaries when it comes to the design and use of carbon fibre pretty much throughout. The wheels are light, strong and offer a wonderful ride feel, but you do have to pay nearly three grand for them.

For the Brocons' construction, Edco has used a 10k carbon weave design rather than a uni-directional one (woven, rather than all the fibres travel in one direction), saying that the higher shield strength of the woven material increases the impact strength. It's certainly a strong set of wheels and they feel absolutely solid.

The Brocons are based around 28mm-deep, tubeless-ready carbon rims, which means they are more of an 'all-rounder' than a deeper pure race wheel, although that does keep the weight down. (Ignore the name on the rim – we were sent an early set, incorrectly labelled.)

The pair weigh just 1,500g including the supplied tubeless rim tape, which is pretty impressive for a disc brake wheelset. With an inner rim width of just 17mm, Edco recommends tyres only up to 28mm wide.

What really sets the Brocons apart from most other wheels is the use of carbon fibre for the spokes that are easily adjusted or replaced. The hubs are aluminium alloy with NBK bearings and water resistant o-rings.

The Brocons are very stiff with is absolutely no feeling of lateral flex when you are giving it everything in a sprint or on a climb. This stiffness doesn't translate to harshness, though, as the carbon fibre spokes give a plush ride taking out any road buzz.

The Edcos are solid and feel very strong, standing up to all the abuse we threw at them and remaining true throughout. The hubs feel very smooth and the freehub pawl engagement is brilliantly quick.

These are very good wheels and although the price is high because of the technology and materials, it's not necessarily excessive for what you are getting.

Read our review
Find an Edco dealer 

After a faltering start, it looks like disc brake-equipped road race bikes are here to stay with ever more manufacturers bringing out new models for 2019.

Toward the end of June 2018, the UCI (cycle sport’s world governing body) announced that disc brakes would be allowed in road races, after a lengthy trial period that was marked by occasionally acrimonious debate about the safety of discs.

The UCI first introduced a trial period for using disc brakes in the pro peloton at the end of the 2015 season, but suspended it following injuries to riders in the 2016 Paris-Roubaix that were alleged to have resulted from disc rotors.

Read our story from last year: Have disc brakes really led to injuries in peloton?

The trial was later resumed with slight modifications to disc rotors demanded, and riders such as sprinter Marcel Kittel raced on disc-equipped bikes throughout the 2017 season.

Check out Marcel Kittel’s Tour de France stage winning Specialized S-Works Venge ViAS Disc.

Why disc brakes at all? The promised benefits are greater modulation and more power, especially in wet conditions, no fade on long descents, rims that don’t wear out, less maintenance and longer lasting brake pads.

On the other hand, disc brakes are currently heavier than rim brakes and there are some concerns about their impact on aerodynamics, although Giant, for example, claims that its new Propel Disc has less drag than its rim brake predecessor.

Here's a roundup of some of the coolest road bikes with disc brakes.

Canyon Ultimate CF SLX Disc 9.0 SL eTap AXS — £5,699

Canyon's lightweight Ultimate bike is dressed here with SRAM's new 12-speed eTap AXS components and DT Swiss ARC 1400 Dicut wheels. Although it's undeniably a big ticket item, comparatively you're getting a lot for your money here and the bike comes fully ready to race. It's stiff, fast and impressively light for a disc brake bike. A Canyon Ultimate paired with any high-end groupset and race wheels would be right near the top of our wishlist for an all-round race bike.

Read our review of the Canyon Ultimate CF SLX Disc 9.0 Movistar

Specialized Tarmac Disc — £2,229-£10,000

The Tarmac SL6 was the big noise for 2018, and shortly after the rim-braked version debuted a disc-braked bike was introduced, first with an S-Works only version but very soon more affordable models followed.

The range is spearheaded by the S-Works Tarmac Disc Sagan Collection LTD, just the thing for the Peter Sagan fan who wants a fast bike with modern brakes and who has ten grand burning a hole in their pocket.

Those of more modest means should check out the  the Tarmac Disc Comp - Sagan Collection LTD (£3,100). The most affordable model is the Tarmac Disc Sport (£2,250), in men's and women's versions and sporting a Shimano 105 groupset.

Rose X-Lite Six Disc Ultegra Di2 — £4,037.77

The Rose X-Lite 6 Disc Ultegra Di2 is a quick, sharp-handling disc-brake bike that can thrill and excite as well as the best of them. And with Rose's custom direct-to-consumer business model, it's also excellent value.

Riding the X-Lite 6 Disc there's an immediate sense of sharpness right from the first pedal stroke. Instantly, you know that you're riding a precision tool. Steering is super-quick and direct, with only the lightest touch or lean required to influence the direction of travel. In fact, it takes a little getting used to if you're not accustomed to such quick responses.

It's lost none of the razor-sharp handling of the old X-Lite, yet there's definitely an added layer of composure at its core. Settle down on a climb and spin away, and the directness transforms into a stable platform. It's an incredibly involving ride on descents too. Leaving aside the proven excellence of disc brakes for a moment (the usual superlatives around power, modulation and all-weather performance apply), the frame responds instantly as you lean, carving a very direct line as you aim for your chosen apex.

Read our review of the Rose X-Lite Six Disc Ultegra Di2

Lightweight Urgestalt Disc frameset — ~£3,600

We try not to focus too much on bike weight around these parts because it's really not as important as some people would have you believe, but it would be nuts to ignore it in this case. Lightweight claims a frameset weight of 1,175g and our built-up Urgestalt Disc weighed 6.7kg (14.7lb) without pedals. Stick some on and you're good to go and race up the Tourmalet in the Tour de France. We're pretty confident that makes the Urgestalt Disc the lightest disc brake-equipped bike we've ever reviewed on road.cc.

In use, the Lightweight Urgestalt Disc feels super-responsive when you put in extra effort, joining in energetically when you ask for a burst of speed to get away from the group or chase down someone with escape on their mind. The sharper the acceleration, the more you notice the lack of ballast.

The other time you notice it is on the steeper climbs. The Urgestalt Disc feels like it's working with you on the hills rather than reluctantly dragging itself up with an if-I-must attitude. Some bikes seem to be asking why we couldn't have gone around the side rather than going over the top, whereas this bike just gets cracking.

Read our review of the Lightweight Urgestalt Disc

Trek Emonda 2019 — £1,400-£10,049

Trek added disc brake models to its lightweight Emonda lineup in 2018, the top level Emonda SLR Disc frame coming in at an astonishing claimed weight of just 665g. That’s still the lightest disc brake frame that we know of. The Emonda SLR Disc fork is 350g. For 2019 the range is significantly wider.

Complete bikes come stock with wide 28mm tyres although Trek says that you can fit wider tyres for gravel and even adventure riding.

The Emonda SLR Disc is available in nine models from the Emonda SLR Disc eTap at £9,300 to the SLR 6 Disc (Shimano Ultegra, £4,400).

The Emonda SL Disc frame is heavier at 1,149g. The SL 7 Disc, built up with a Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset, is £4,500 while the SL 6 Disc with the mechanical version of Shimano Ultegra is £2,700.

Read more: Trek launches superlight new Emondas.

Giant Propel Disc 2019 — £2,299-£8,999

Giant added disc brakes to its Propel aero road bikes for 2018, and claimed that the flagship model, the Propel Advanced SL Disc, had the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio of any bike in its class and a lower drag coefficient at a wider range of yaw angles than its non-disc-brake predecessor.

“This is because the location of traditional callipers (either in front or behind the fork crown/ legs) creates 'dirty' air,” says Giant. “Opening up the fork crown area (by placing the disc-brake callipers down at the hub) means that the air hitting the new disc-brake calliper has already been disrupted by the leading edge of the tyre/wheel. This effect is further enhanced by an asymmetric fork that helps smooth out airflow over the calliper.”

The 2019 range includes the Propel Advanced 2 Disc at a very reasonable £2,299 and the latest version of the flagship Propel Advanced SL 0 Disc at a rather steeper £8,999.

Giant says that the Propel Disc had a three year development phase involving its engineers, Team Sunweb pro racers and aerodynamics experts at the Aero Concept Engineering facility in Magny-Cours, France.

Find out more about Giant's Propel Disc bikes.

The range features aero wheelsets with different rim depths front and rear, the idea being to reduce drag without compromising control or power transmission; updated frame profiles; and a new combined aero handlebar and stem with internal cable routing.

Read our guide to Giant’s 2018 road bikes
Read our review of the Giant Propel Advanced Disc

3T Strada — £3,600 (frame, fork, headset, seatpost)

3T’s Strada is a new disc-equipped road bike that’s built around wide tyres and a 1x (single chainring, no front derailleur) groupset. It has been developed by Cervelo founder Gerard Vroomen

The Strada uses tubes that are shaped to minimise drag, the down tube being designed to push air around a low-mounted bottle. The transitions at the key junctions (front wheel to down tube and from seat tube to rear wheel) have been reduced as much as possible, which is claimed to further reduce drag.

3T says that going with disc brakes allows it to make its Fundi fork stiffer and provide improved aerodynamics because the crown is closer to the front wheel.

Perhaps the biggest deviation from tradition with the new Strada is the elimination of the front derailleur. 3T reckons that a 1x system gives you all the gears you need with fewer components, lower weight and less drag. The pro teams 3T sponsors don't seems to be 100% convinced, though, so there's now a Strada Due with a front derailleur mount too.

Check out our 3T Strada video with Gerard Vroomen
Read our review of the 3T Strada

Merida Reacto — from £2,000

Merida’s updated Reacto aero road bike is available in both disc brake and rim brake models.

Merida has slimmed down the Reacto’s tubes to improve aero efficiency, introduced a lower seatstay connection with the seat tube and added a one piece cockpit.

Merida also says that it has improved comfort through the redesigned seatstays and given its S-Flex seatpost a slimmer cross section and a bigger ‘window’ – the notch that’s cutaway to add more downward movement.

The disc brake Reactos come with cooler technology like Merida uses on its Sculturas. There’s a forged aluminium component between the brake and the frame/fork that’s designed to allow heat to dissipate through CNC-milled cooling fins. The idea is that this reduces the amount of heat that gets transferred to the carbon-fibre on long descents.

The CF4 version of the disc brake frame uses the RAT (Rapid Axle Technology) first introduced by Focus for quick wheel changes in race situations, while the CF2 version has threaded 12mm thru axles.

Find out more about the 2018 Merida Reactos
Read our review of the Merida Reacto Disc Team-E

BMC Teammachine — £2,025-£9,000

BMC claims a weight of just 815g for the Teammachine's carbon fibre disc brake frame, versus 790g for the rim brake version. The disc frameset has an asymmetric fork to cope with the braking forces.

BMC says that the Teammachine is stiffer, lighter and more compliant than before, but you’d probably have guessed that.

While the new frame bears a resemblance to the previous version, BMC has refined all the tube profiles to balance the stiffness and compliance. It says the bottom bracket area provides more stiffness while the compliance has also been improved for increased seated comfort, thanks in part to newly shaped seat stays creating a compact rear triangle.

The range now starts with an aluminium-framed bike, the Teammachine ALR Disc One with Shimano's new 105 R7000 components for £1,800.

Find out more about the new BMC Teammachine
Read our review of the BMC TeamMachine SLR01 Disc Two

Scott Foil Disc — £3,199-£10,999

Scott’s Foil Disc has a very similar frame to the existing rim brake model but the fork has been completely redesigned to manage the asymmetrical forces of disc brakes and to control the airflow around the front brake. Most notably, the lower sections of the fork come with aero tabs to smooth airflow over the calliper.

That fork comes with internal cable routing and enough clearance for 30mm wide tyres.

The Foil Disc uses 12mm thru axles front and rear. The front axle’s head is 25mm in diameter, the idea being that this larger than normal contact surface between the fork and axle is better able to handle the load coming from the front brake.

Pinarello Dogma F10 Disk — £4,699 (frameset)

Pinarello has released a disc brake version of the bike Chris Froome rode to victory in this year’s to Tour de France, its Dogma F10.

The Dogma F10 Disk frame (don't ask us how it comes to be hovering in the picture) retains features of the rim brake model like flatback stays and a concave down tube that’s designed to shield a water bottle from the airflow. However, the disc version comes with thru axles front and rear, and the lower sections of the Onda F10 fork have ForkFlaps that are designed to improve aerodynamics around the front brake.

A thoroughbred race bike, the Dogma F10 Disk provides enough space for tyres only up to 25mm wide.

Find out more about the Pinarello Dogma F10 Disk.

Cannondale CAAD 12 Disc 2019 — £1,525-£3,149

The CAAD12 is the latest in a long series of well-received aluminium bikes from Cannondale, lighter, stiffer and more comfortable than the CAAD10 and available with or without disc brakes.

Following the popular and likeable CAAD10 was always going to be a tough act, but Cannondale has succeeded not only in retaining the key qualities of the previous model but also improving the ride quality. It's nothing short of marvellous.

The CAAD12 is a finely honed bike with a level of comfort and refinement that makes you wonder why you would spend more. It's so smooth that it outshines many carbon fibre road bikes we've tested over the years.

Read our review of the 2016 Cannondale CAAD12 Disc Dura-Ace.

Bianchi Aria Disc — £2,750-£4,200

Bianchi has unveiled both rim brake and disc brake versions of its Aria aero road bike. The Italian brand already has the Oltre aero road bikes in its range and has only recently launched the Oltre XR3, but the Aria represents a trickle down of Aquila time trial/ triathlon design in a much more affordable, and broader, application.

You get many tried and tested aero features including a seat tube that’s cutaway around the leading edge of the rear wheel, a deeply profiled down tube and a skinny head tube.

Read our review of the Bianchi Aria Disc

Vitus Vitesse Evo CRS Disc Ultegra — £2,599.99

The Vitus Vitesse Evo Disc offers a helluva lot for your money. It’s a carbon fibre, disc brake-equipped road bike built around a race-focused geometry and it offers a superb performance.

The Vitesse Evo Disc offers quick steering and unexpected speed. It's a thrilling and rewarding ride, backed up by decent equipment choices.

The carbon frame has been designed to be stiff through the use of oversized tube profiles and bottom bracket, and a tapered head tube. And it's a success. Stomp on the pedals and there's an intoxicating immediacy to the way it transfers your power that will have you attacking every rise and crest in the pursuit of more speed.

Check out our Vitus Vitesse Evo Disc Ultegra 2017 review

Cervelo R5 Disc — £7,999

The latest version of Cervelo’s R5 is available in a disc brake format.

The R5 has been the brand’s lightest race-ready bike since it was launched in 2013. Where the S-series is focused on aerodynamics and the newer C-series on endurance comfort, the R-series has always been about being the light. Oh, and stiff. Cervelo says that the new R5 is considerably stiffer than the previous version at both the bottom bracket and head tube.

Cervélo has evolved its Squoval tube shapes (rounded square tube profiles) here with Squoval Max, essentially refining each tube profile and to improve stiffness and aero efficiency.

Interestingly, the disc brake frame is actually a little lighter than the rim brake version – 831g versus 850g.

Cervélo has adopted the excellent RAT thru-axles from sister company Focus, allowing for quick wheel changes, and you get enough clearance for 28mm wide tyres.

Read our review of the Cervelo R5 Disc

Colnago V2-R Disc — £3,399.95 (frame, fork, headset & seatpost)

Colnago announced the rim brake version of its new V2-R in June 2017 and then we saw the disc brake version at Eurobike in August of that year.

The Concept is the full-on aero bike in Colnago’s range with the V2-R a lightweight all-rounder with some aero features.

The V2-R retains many of the features of the brand’s V1-R although Colnago claims that both the bottom bracket and headset stiffness have been increased.

Colnago has redesigned the top tube and head tube junction and revised the cable routing, the cables now entering a central port on the top of the down tube.

The V2-R uses the Hexlock thru-axle system that Colnago developed with suspension company Manitou. It's similar to the Focus Rapid Axle Technology in that you part twist the skewer into the opposing dropout before pushing close the lever. It speeds up wheel removal quite a bit.

Find out more about the rim brake version of the Colnago V2-R .

Tubeless wheelsets have become way more popular recently, thanks especially to the growing number of tubeless tyres out there these days, and here are some of the best that we've reviewed for over a grand.

Check out 10 of the best tubeless wheelsets for under £1,000

A tubeless system is essentially a clincher tyre inflated onto a rim without an inner tube. Instead, an airtight chamber is created with a tubeless-specific tyre, developed with a special bead and a compatible rim. 

One big advantage is the substantially reduced risk of puncturing, as long as you use liquid sealant inside the tyre and keep it topped up. If the tyre is punctured, the sealant plugs the hole. The tyre might suffer a small drop in pressure if you puncture, but the sealant will deal with most small holes caused by flint and thorns, allowing you to keep riding.

If you want to go tubeless you need the right wheels, and here are 10 of the best, some for rim brakes and some for discs. They've all been awarded an overall of score of at least 8 out of 10 in road.cc reviews.

Clicking on the name of each wheelset will take you to a dealer.

Hunt 30 Carbon Dynamo Disc £1,059 

These Carbon 30 Disc Dynamo wheels are excellent. The rim is 30mm deep, made from unidirectional T24/30 carbon fibre with the spoke holes reinforced with a 3K weave. It's a reasonably wide profile, with a 27mm external width and a 21mm internal profile. 

The wheels came with tubeless rim tape fitted, and a hole for the valve. Fitting Schwalbe G-One Speeds was easy. Our review pair came tightly built and true, and they stayed that way during testing. With 28 spokes front and rear they're built for bikepacking and ultra-distance rather than fully loaded touring; Hunt recommends a 115kg limit for rider and luggage. 

The SON Delux dynamo is specifically designed for road riding. It weighs just 395g and when turned off generates just 0.4W of drag, barely more than a standard front hub. The efficiency is rated at 65%, and the dynamo outputs 3W of power at 20km/h, so to power your lights or your USB charger you can expect to be putting less than 5W into the system. We used the dynamo with a Busch & Muller IQ-X front light and a Supernova E3 rear, getting easily enough power to light the way. 

At the rear Hunt is using its 4Season Disc hub that has extra shielding for the EZO cartridge bearings inside. Both front and rear hubs use standard J-bend spokes which should be fairly easy to find a replacement for if you pop one out on tour. The wheels come with two spares of each length to take with you too, plus a spoke key, 6-bolt adaptors for the Centerlock disc mounts, tubeless rim tape (fitted) and tubeless valves.

Overall these wheels are excellent. They're light and well built, the front dynamo is as good as they come for road riding and the rear hub has been great too. They're sensibly built, come with spares, and are set up for the long haul. 

Read our review 
Buy from Hunt 

Reynolds ATR X 650B £1,105 

The original ATR rim was a chunky affair, and this design (called the ATR 2 when we reviewed it, but having since be renamed) is even wider: 23mm internally and 32mm externally, with a depth of 40mm. The bulbous profile follows the developments in aero wheel technology that are pushing towards increasingly toroidal designs, but Reynolds doesn't make any particular aero claims for this wheelset.

You get 24 spokes front and rear; that's not much for an all-purpose wheelset like this, but one of the main benefits of a carbon rim is that it's laterally stiffer for the same weight, meaning that the spoke count can be reduced.

If you're heading off to terrain that's more challenging, especially with a loaded bike, then carbon does still have advantages over alloy for its impact resistance. 

These ATR wheels were easy to set up tubeless. Ours came fitted with rim tape and were supplied with valves. The 40mm Schwalbe G-Ones went up first time; bigger tyres that were a baggier fit required a couple of extra wraps of tape to tighten things up, but we got them sealed just fine.

Our test wheels came fitted a Shimano 11-speed freehub. You can also have an XD driver if you want a wider cassette, or a Campagnolo freehub. 

The disc mount is Centerlock and these wheels come set up with 12mm axles front and rear. You can run the front as a 15mm axle; those end caps come with the wheels. If you want to run quick releases then QR end caps are available separately.

We had a very positive experience with these wheels. As a 650B wheelset, they're not necessarily overpriced considering the materials and build quality (and lifetime warranty), but you might question whether, for riding on the road with big tyres, a carbon rim has enough of a benefit over alloy to justify the inevitable price difference. It'll depend on what you're planning. If your riding takes you to genuinely technical terrain, or you're riding a loaded bike, or both, the extra stiffness and impact resistance of a carbon rim will be useful. If you're looking for more comfort on the road then the performance is great, but the price hike less justified.

Read our review
Find a Reynolds dealer

Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless DT 350 £1,159.99

These Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless Ready wheels are seriously good for their price tag. They're stable in strong winds, quick to spin up to speed and also quick to stop. What's more, you get great hubs and high-end pads. It's a great package.

This full carbon wheelset comes in at a very respectable 1,450g. The rims are 26mm wide externally, laced to the brilliant DT Swiss 350 hubs with DT Aerolite spokes.

Those hubs are pretty bombproof. While these wheels were used in mostly dry conditions, we've had these hubs on wheels that have seen some horrendous weather; they're solid and don't require much attention. While we're on reliability, we had zero spoke tension issues even after a few big hits in races.

At 45mm deep, these strike a great balance between speed, quick acceleration and handling. They don't pick up strong winds which is probably down to the blunt profile at the leading and trailing edges. 

One of the attractions of this set of wheels is what you get for your money. They come in a well-padded double wheel bag with a zippered storage compartment containing brake pads and skewers. You also get a set of tubeless valves.

Read our review
Find a Fast Forward dealer 

Giant SLR 0 42mm £1,379.48 

The Giant SLR 0 42mm wheels are an ideal all-round go-faster set of hoops. The rims are wide, feel fast and handle well. The hubs are simple to service, quiet and robust. They performed excellently during testing in my mix of hilly races, flat criteriums and general riding with good braking and stability in crosswinds. 

The 42mm-deep full-carbon rims are tubeless ready and the spokes are DT Aerolites – straight-pull with internal nipples. This gives a very clean build, although one that isn't so easy for maintenance. Not that it will matter, for a while at least, as the wheels were perfectly straight out of the box and remained that way.

The hubs are Giant branded, with DT Swiss 240 internals. This is a great balance between performance and reliability with easy maintenance.

We didn't find these wheels hard to handle in windy conditions. In fact, they felt very stable. The wheels also feel zippy when climbing thanks to the respectable weight: 629g front and 791g rear, giving a total of 1,420g. Weight isn't everything, though. We were also impressed with the lateral stiffness. 

Overall, we were impressed with these Giant wheels because they're a great option if you want one wheelset for racing and general riding. 

Read our review 
Find a Giant dealer 

DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline 65 £1,120.00

The DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline clincher wheels have deep section 65mm rims for aerodynamic efficiency, they're well made and come with excellent internals.

The rim is a NACA shape with a fairly blunt profile, although the PRCs are in no way bulbous like Zipps, for example. The PRCs can be a little hard to handle on some gusty, blustery days, but this is rare – and not much different from any other wheels of a similar depth. 

The PRC wheels use DT Swiss's well-respected 240 hubs. The freehub features a ratchet system (rather than standard pawls). Springs push two 36-tooth star ratchets together to engage when you pedal, all of the teeth engaging at the same time in just 10 degrees. This system works really well and durability is excellent.

The wheels feel stiff in use, so you can set your brake pads very close to the rim without danger of rubbing when you corner hard or ride out of the saddle.

Braking in dry conditions is good – progressive without any grabbing – and braking in the wet, although not exceptional, is sure and confident. 

You get tubeless tape and tubeless valves as part of the package (along with RWS Steel quick releases and SwissStop Black Prince brake pads). Setting them up tubeless is easy enough. 

You are getting some seriously good wheels for your money here. Granted, these don't offer quite the aero performance of DT Swiss's ARC 1100 Dicut wheels but the PRCs feature excellent components, they're stiff, braking is good and, for their depth, they feel pretty stable in most conditions. This is a reliable high-performance wheelset that puts in a great performance in a variety of conditions.

Read our review 
Find a DT Swiss dealer 

Roval CLX 50 Disc £1,850

Fast, light and wide, these tubeless carbon disc brake wheels offer excellent performance.

The aim for the new Roval CLX 50 was to marry the aero performance of the deeper section CLX 64 with the lightness of the shallower CLX 32. At 1,415g with a 50mm-deep rim and disc brake hubs, they appear to have achieved that objective. This is a very attractive weight in a hugely competitive wheel market. 

It's a full carbon fibre construction, tubeless ready and available in disc or rim brake versions, with a wide and bulbous profile rim. Internal rim width is 20.7mm, external is 29.4mm, ensuring wider tyres are happily accommodated; between 22 and 47mm can be used. 

The clincher rims are tubeless-ready, using a hookless bead design that is favoured by a few other wheel brands, and claimed to provide a stronger rim with less weight.

At the centre of the wheels are new hubs designed to minimise drag. That accounts for the smooth shape. Inside the hubs are DT Swiss 240 internals with upgraded CeramicSpeed bearings. DT Swiss also supplies the Aerolite spokes.

These wheels are superbly fast in a straight line and maintain excellent momentum when you're really pushing hard on the pedals. They're also tough and dependable. They easily shrug off bad road surfaces; we've smashed into potholes and ridden them along gravel tracks and they've taken all the punishment with no sign of loose spokes or going out of true.

They're smooth and comfortable for a deep-section wheelset, something you really appreciate when riding along a washboard or chattery surface, where the rapid vibrations can easily unsettle an otherwise smooth ride, and especially if you head off onto gravel or dirt roads. 

The Rovals handle winds superbly. The rounded rim profile provides exceptionally good stability with little sign of buffeting even in the strongest gusts.

Read our review 
Find a Roval dealer 

Mavic Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST £1,899.00 

Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST wheels make tubeless technology truly nothing to fear, with all the benefits attached. These are very capable performance all-rounders.

Compared to the previous model, these wheels come with a re-engineered, deeper rim bed with an additional lip to create a secure tubeless seal, and specially designed Yksion Pro tyres to fit this new design.

The rim has an external width of 25mm rim, an internal width of 17mm and a 40mm depth, with a NACA-inspired profile. The excellent iTgMax laser brake track treatment improves the braking performance.

These wheels excel in pretty much any conditions – including gusty winds, where they stay remarkably stable. On climbs they're stiff as you like and they'll slice through valley headwinds.

Although not quite the performance-value proposition they used to be back when they were clinchers, Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL USTs are still competitive, while boasting arguably the easiest-to-install tubeless interface around.

Read our review
Find a Mavic dealer 

Bontrager Aeolus XXX 4 TLR Clincher Road £1,999.98

Bontrager's Aeolus XXX 4 TLR clincher wheels are stiff, lightweight and steady in use and offer good braking in both wet and dry conditions. This is a great all-round aero wheelset that's suitable for a wide variety of conditions.

The rim shape is completely new, developed using CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software and wind tunnel testing. The external width at the brake track is 27mm while the internal width is to 21mm, offering plenty of support for the 25mm tyres for which these wheels are optimised. Bontrager says that the Aeolus XXX 4 has lower drag than the Zipp 303 NSW at all yaw angles from 0-17.5°, with the Zipp slightly lower at 20°.

The wheelset is lightweight considering the rim depth, ours coming in at 1,420g for the pair. The focus here is more on aerodynamics, but you're never going to turn down a saving.

The Aeolus XXX 4 TLRs are stiff and stable. Crosswinds do have an effect, but it's not massive considering the 47mm rim depth and there's none of that twitchiness that you get with some aero rims.  The Aeolus XXX 4 TLRs have behaved well on super-windy rides recently. Crosswinds do have an effect, of course, but it's not massive considering the 47mm rim depth and, even more important to my mind, the wheels behave predictably. There's none of that twitchiness that you get with some.

Bontrager has introduced a new feature to the rim brake versions of its Aeolus XXX wheels called a Laser Control Track. Automated laser machining 'roughens the brake track to an optimised level that maximises braking performance when used with SwissStop Black Prince pads (which come as part of the package). Braking performance is noticeably better than before, especially in wet conditions.

All of Bontrager's XXX models are tubeless-ready, coming with the necessary rim strips, valve stems and sealant refill kit.

Read our review
Find a Bontrager dealer 

Knight 35 Tubeless £2,000.00

The Knight 35 wheels are fast; they are also stiff, reliable and stable. 

The 35s come with DT Swiss 240 hubs, which are brilliant. With cartridge bearings and easy servicing, they should last for ages. 

Spokes are Sapim's CX Rays. One thing that slightly annoyed our reviewer was the use of internal nipples. Yes, it looks clean but should you ping these out of true thanks to a pothole, it's more of a hassle to get them straight again.

Although the wheelset isn't superlight – ours came in at 1,590g with rim tape and skewers installed – the weight is still pretty low, and translates to a nippy feel. It's very easy to get these wheels up to speed and then increase that speed, especially when climbing. 

The 35s are the shallowest section wheels that Knight offers. The rim profile is somewhere between a 'V' shape and a 'U'. This gives the rim an external width of 25mm, sitting very nicely with wider tyres. 

The brake track is engineered with a 3mm brake surface for improved heat dissipation in an attempt by Knight to combat brake fade and even blow-outs on long descents. The braking is smooth and consistent. While stopping still isn't as good as aluminium rims, there is room for improvement in the form of softer brake pads; those supplied are quite hard. That does mean they'll last quite a while, but we were quick to swap in a softer pad for better power.

Overall, the Knight 35s offer a very good package for a shallow carbon clincher. 

Read our review 
Buy from Sigma Sport 

Edco Brocon Disc £2,900

The new Edco Brocon Disc Brake wheelset pushes the boundaries when it comes to the design and use of carbon fibre pretty much throughout. The wheels are light, strong and offer a wonderful ride feel, but you do have to pay nearly three grand for them.

For the Brocons' construction, Edco has used a 10k carbon weave design rather than a uni-directional one (woven, rather than all the fibres travel in one direction), saying that the higher shield strength of the woven material increases the impact strength. It's certainly a strong set of wheels and they feel absolutely solid.

The Brocons are based around 28mm-deep, tubeless-ready carbon rims, which means they are more of an 'all-rounder' than a deeper pure race wheel, although that does keep the weight down. (Ignore the name on the rim – we were sent an early set, incorrectly labelled.)

The pair weigh just 1,500g including the supplied tubeless rim tape, which is pretty impressive for a disc brake wheelset. With an inner rim width of just 17mm, Edco recommends tyres only up to 28mm wide.

What really sets the Brocons apart from most other wheels is the use of carbon fibre for the spokes that are easily adjusted or replaced. The hubs are aluminium alloy with NBK bearings and water resistant o-rings.

The Brocons are very stiff with is absolutely no feeling of lateral flex when you are giving it everything in a sprint or on a climb. This stiffness doesn't translate to harshness, though, as the carbon fibre spokes give a plush ride taking out any road buzz.

The Edcos are solid and feel very strong, standing up to all the abuse we threw at them and remaining true throughout. The hubs feel very smooth and the freehub pawl engagement is brilliantly quick.

These are very good wheels and although the price is high because of the technology and materials, it's not necessarily excessive for what you are getting.

Read our review
Find an Edco dealer 

• With elongated tube shapes and other wind-cheating features, aero road bikes provide a small but handy speed boost.

• Sleek shapes make for a distinctive look.

• Recent aero road bikes have alleviated the harsh ride that plagued some early models, thanks to improved use of materials.

• Frame aerodynamics is still a marginal gain; if you're wearing flappy clothes an aero bike is a waste of money.

In just a few years aero road bikes have gone from The Next Big Thing to a mainstream bike option. The latest models have been tweaked to be faster than ever, according to the manufacturers, and to alleviate the harsh ride that characterised some early aero bikes.

Aero road bikes essentially draw aerodynamic features from time trial bikes into a road frame, and balance the demands of weight and stiffness into a package that, on paper, looks to be the ideal all-round choice.

At any decent speed, most of your effort goes into overcoming air resistance, so reducing a bike's drag means you'll go faster, or ride at any given speed with a lower power output. Who doesn't like the sound of that?

Most of your air resistance comes from your body rather than your bike. Wearing non-flappy clothing will help, as will losing weight. But the 20% or so of air resistance from your bike is enough for engineers and designers to focus on making road frames and products more slippery through the air. In the pro peloton aero road bikes have been quickly adopted, where the margins of victory are very slim and there has been a focus on gaining ever smaller performance gains over the years.

Weight, or the lack of it, used to be the main driving force of frame development. Along with stiffness, it was a cornerstones of bike design. These days most bikes are light, many well below the UCI’s 6.8kg weight limit (which doesn’t affect non-racers anyway), and come with more stiffness than is sometimes comfortable.

All that has made aerodynamics more important. Specialized has built its own wind tunnel, for example, and most manufacturers are testing in other facilities. Nevertheless, aero road bikes haven't converged on a perfect, slippery shape. Different engineers prioritise different ways of improving aerodynamics but there are shared design trends: skinny, aerofoil-shaped tubes, integrated brakes, and internal cable routing.

Let's take a look at the latest aero offerings.

Look 795 Blade RS — £2,900 (frameset)

The new Look 795 Blade RS is all about speed, with its design focusing on stiffness and aerodynamics yet without a huge sacrifice to overall comfort. An impressive combination to achieve, and a very nice bike to ride – whether you're racing or just out for a razz.

Look has created a bike that is ruthlessly stiff when you drop the hammer but with next to no road vibration or crass banging or rattling over rough surfaces. The 795 has a beautifully smooth ride quality similar to that of a titanium frame.

This means you can cover a good distance at speed without really noticing it, and even on four to five-hour rides I got off the bike feeling fresher than normal without realising where the time had gone.

Read our review of the Look 795 Blade RS
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Orbea Orca Aero 2019 — £2,699-£7,199

The Orca Aero boasts lots of wind-cheating tweaks that Orbea says add up to a 27 watt advantage. Our tester David Arthur found the Orbea Orca Aero M20Team to be "a fast and great handling aerodynamic road bike with a surprising talent for smoothing out all but the roughest roads. But it is speed, not comfort, that is at the top of the list of requirements for an aero road bike, and that's an area where the Orca Aero feels very competent. It's right up there with the Trek Madone, Cervelo S3 and Canyon Aeroad, as super-quick aero race bikes.

"The handling is a highlight, and helps to set it apart from some aero bikes that can be exceedingly quick but a little lacking when it comes to the way they ride and translate your inputs into actions. The Orca Aero is fun and engaging, putting a smile on your face when you're descending or chasing a friend along an undulating ridge road."

You can customise the colour scheme and spec of your Orca Aero too, so if you want to upgrade the wheels, or have yours in pink and orange, fill your boots.

Read our review of the e Orbea Orca Aero M20Team
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Bianchi Aria Disc 2019 — £2,750-£4,200

The new Bianchi Aria Disc is an aero road bike that offers efficiency, sharp handling and a responsive character, now with the additional all-weather assurance of disc brakes – in this case from Campagnolo.

The Aria Disc responds keenly to increased effort. Our 59cm sample wasn't especially light at 8.5kg (18.7lb), but it felt direct when you put in the power, a meaty bottom bracket helping to keep everything solidly in place. The Aria Disc feels as manoeuvrable as the rim brake version, which isn't a surprise given that the geometry is virtually identical. Some bikes designed for aerodynamics offer plenty of straight-line speed but they're a little compromised when you want to flick around. The Aria Disc handles sharply, which gives you options when it comes to darting about a group or avoiding something in the road.

Read our review of the Bianchi Aria Disc
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3T Strada — £3,250

The 3T Strada has blown us away. It's a truly stunning bike with breathtaking speed, impressive smoothness and fine handling balance. If this is the future, as some people have speculated, we're sold. Take our money, 3T. This is one of the most exciting road bikes available right now.

The Strada certainly won't be for everyone. And that's fine, there are plenty of fantastic performance road bikes currently available if the 1x11 gearing, disc brakes and tight clearances frighten you. None are as radical as the new 3T, though. What the Strada does with its unique design is offer another choice. It achieves the same aim – of being stupendously fast – but takes a different path to get there.

And if you love the Strada but are put off by the requirement to run just a single chainring, 3T has something for you: the £3,700 Strada Due will take a front derailleur so you can run conventional double-chainring gearing.

Read our review of the 3T Strada
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Colnago Concept — £1,999 (frameset)

Colnago has joined the aerodynamic arms race with the Concept, a full blooded aero race bike that is a serious step forward from the Italian company's first aero road bike, the V1-r.

The Concept has all the capability to dice with the fastest in a race situation. Its stiff frame, deep-section wheels and lightweight give it an insatiable appetite for speed. It's quick in all circumstances: climbs, descents, flat and undulating roads – the bike shines everywhere. This is an exciting bike to ride fast, and like all good aero road bikes it encourages you to ride flat-out.

That firm ride, and frame and fork stiffness ensure the Concept accurately follows your inputs, whether through the handlebar or pedals. It reacts positively whether you're blasting an uphill sprint finish or bombing through a curving descent.

The Concept isn't just for racing. It provides adequate composure and comfort, allowing you to tackle long distance rides at a few notches below race pace and not be dealt a hammer-blow to the lower back the moment the tyres encounter anything but a super-smooth surface. The front end of an aero race bike can often be overwhelmingly harsh, but the special headset and fork steerer tube that Colnago has developed mean the Concept is smoother up front than would normally be expected on an aero road bike.

Read our review of the Colnago Concept
Find a Colnago dealer

Merida Reacto 2019 — £1,000-£8,250

Merida has updated its Reacto to be, it says, lighter, more comfortable and more aerodynamically efficient than before. It has done this by slimming down the tube shapes and introducing a lower seatstay connection with the seat tube, among other things.

Merida – a Taiwanese brand although much of its engineering is undertaken in Germany – says that the new Reacto is more aerodynamically efficient than the previous version by about eight watts at 45km/h. That equates to around 5%.

Comfort has been increased through redesigning the seatstays and giving the S-Flex seatpost a slimmer cross section and a bigger ‘window’ – a notch that’s cutaway to allow more downward movement.

For 2018, Merida is offering disc brake versions of the Reacto for the first time.

Read more on the updated Merida Reacto here.
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Boardman Air 9.X — £1,349-£3,999

Boardman's Air 9.2 (£1,749) is just the ticket if you're looking for a fast bike with a good spec. It's a great package and the performance is impressive.

Some aero bikes can be a handful, but thankfully the Air 9.2 is a neutral ride most of the time. Considering the amount of side profile, it's really not that much of a handful in the wind. Okay, our reviewer had a couple of interesting moments getting hit by a 30mph sidewind on one ride, but it's generally pretty predictable.

It's fast, it's firm but not uncomfortable, and it responds well under power. There are a few minor niggles – the brakes aren't the best, and some of the components are worth an upgrade to get the best out of the frame – but if you're looking for a fast bike for racing, triathlon or even time trialling then it's very much one to consider.

Read our review of the Boardman Elite Air 9.2
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Storck Aerfast Platinum — from ~£6,000

Buying the Storck Aerfast Platinum is a massive outlay, but boy, oh boy do you get one hell of a return on your investment. It's a sub-6.5kg race weapon, with aerodynamics that work in the real world, and it offers comfort levels to challenge most endurance bikes.

Taking plenty of things it has learnt from its astonishingly good Aernario, Storck has pushed the design even further down the aerodynamics route, and what it has created in the Aerfast is a bike that's not only unbelievably fast, but light and stiff too.

If you're in the market for an aero bike, speed is going to be topping your list of priorities, and that's where the Aerfast truly excels. At lower speeds the Storck feels like any other bike to ride, any other superlight bike that is, but as you ride faster it feels like a permanent tailwind is nudging you along, a friendly hand on your back as you watch the numbers climb on the Garmin – with little more effort required than there was 5mph ago. It's a wonderful feeling, and one of which you never tire.

Read our review of the Storck Aerfast Platinum
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Cervelo S3 Disc Ultegra Di2 2019 — £5,699

Cervélo has redesigned the S3 Disc to smooth out any penalties that might occur from adding disc brakes. The result is a frame that it claims is 9% stiffer, a touch more aerodynamically efficient, and lighter by 40g compared with the regular rim brake model.

There's a lot to like about the Cervélo S3 Disc. If you want pure speed with the reassurance of hydraulic disc brakes, it's a very good option: it's extremely fast and the handling is lively and direct – just what you want from a race bike – but its composure on rough roads falls some way short of its key rivals. If you're willing to overlook its lack of comfort, it's an explosive bike.

Read our review of the Cervelo S3 Disc Ultegra Di2
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Ridley Noah Fast Ultegra Di2 Disc — £7,198

Aero and discs? It's getting more common as bike makers figure out how to mount disc callipers without adversely affecting aerodynamics.

Ridley calls its collection of speed-enhancing aerodynamic features FAST. It includes a tube shape that combines an aerofoil profile with a groove that helps keep the air flowing smoothly over the surface to reduce drag. For 2019 tube shapes have been further refined, there's a new integrated bar, stem and fork system that hides the cables completely, and the fork tips have sprouted 'F-Wings' to improve airflow over disc brakes.

As for the discs, Ridley believes they're simply a better way of stopping.

Read about Greg Henderson's Ridley Noah SL
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Pinarello Dogma F10 — £4,499 (frame & fork)

Developed in collaboration with Team Sky, the Dogma F10 is the bike upon which Chris Froome won the 2017 Tour de France. The F10 uses FlatBack tube profiles – a Kamm tail sort of shape with a rounded leading edge and chopped off tail, and Pinarello has shaped the down tube so that you can mount a water bottle without ruining the aerodynamic performance. Up front the fork is derived from the company’s Bolide time trial bike with aerodynamically shaped legs and a crown that's integrated into a recessed down tube.

Find a Pinarello dealer

Canyon Aeroad CF SLX — £3,899-£6,799

The second-generation Aeroad CF SLX has been inspired by the work that Canyon did on its futuristic Speedmax time trial bike, with razor sharp aero tube profiles and an optional one-piece handlebar and stem. Much of the company’s focus was on reducing the Aeroad's frontal surface area, so along with the new cockpit there’s a narrower hour-glass shaped head tube to help reduce drag. Other changes include a variant of the Trident tube shape used on the Speedmax, and a seat tube that hugs the leading edge of the rear wheel.

The Aeroad CF SLX is available in both rim brake and disc brake models.

Read our review of the Canyon Aeroad CF SLX 7.0 Di2
Read our review of the Canyon Aeroad CF SLX Disc 8.0 Di2
Check out our complete guide to Canyon's road bikes

Specialized S-Works Venge Disc Vias Di2 — £9,000

If you're going to fly, you need to be able to rein in that speed. Disc brakes give finer modulation of speed with less effort at the lever so as you're whooping into Alpine hairpins you can brake later and waste less valuable speed.

As well as its aero frame, the Venge Vias has an aero handlebar and stem. The almost complete lack of external cables further reduces drag.

Read our review of the Specialized Venge Vias Expert Disc
Read about Mark Cavendish's Venge at the Tour de France
Find a Specialized dealer

Scott Foil 2019 — £2,499-£10,999

The Foil arguably kicked off the whole aero road bike trend, bringing aerodynamic design that was once the preserve of time trial bikes to regular road bikes. For 2018, Scott added disc brakes, arguing along with other manufacturers that you can go faster if you can slow down better. That's on top of the last series of updates to the Foil that saw the down tube lowered and wrapped around the fork crown, and a smaller rear triangle and internal seat clamp in the top tube.

Don't make the mistake of thinking this is an uncomfortable aero bike. Mathew Hayman rode over a few little bumps on his way to winning Paris-Roubaix in 2016.

Read our coverage of the 2016 Scott Foil launch
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Trek Madone 2019 — £3,600-£10,000

Once an all-round lightweight race bike, the Madone has had a complete aerodynamic makeover. It features a version of the Isospeed decoupler borrowed from the Domane to provide some comfort and it’s wrapped up in a frame with Kamm tail shaped tubes. Like Specialized, Trek has also developed its own brake callipers that are designed to integrate with the fork and seatstays. The head tube features flaps that open and close to accommodate the movement of the brake when the fork is turned.

For 2019 has a hugely updated Madone road bike with adjustable IsoSpeed (a shock damper at the top tube/seat tube junction), a new geometry and disc brake models. The rim brake version is lighter while the disc brake version has no aerodynamic penalty, according to Trek..

Read our coverage of the 2019 Trek Madone launch
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Giant Propel Advanced SL 0 Disc 2019 — £8,999

Giant has added disc brakes to the Propel Advanced lineup for 2018, claiming that the flagship model, the Propel Advanced SL Disc, has the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio of any bike in its class and a lower drag coefficient at a wider range of yaw angles than the rim brake version.

“One of the key breakthroughs is a new truncated ellipse airfoil shape – a design that lowers drag at a wider range of wind angles than traditional teardrop frame tubing,” says Giant. “Engineers also found that, with proper integration, a disc-brake design can actually improve aero performance compared to rim-brake configurations.”

As well as a stunning paint job, the top of the range Propel Advanced SL 0 Disc has a full Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset and Giant's own SLR 0 Aero Disc wheels with a 42mm deep front rim and 65mm rear.

The Propel disc range starts at £2,999 with the Propel Advanced 1 Disc.

Read our review of the Giant Propel Advanced Disc
Read our review of the Giant Propel Advanced 1
Read our coverage of the original Giant Propel launch
Find a Giant dealer

Lapierre Aircode SL 2019 – £2,499-£6,999

French brand Lapierre gave its Aircode bikes a major update for 2018. The frame profiles were refined, and are now shaped using a combination of NACA and Kamm tail profiles. The down tube, for example, transitions from one to the other to keep drag low while increasing lateral stiffness at the bottom bracket. Other changes include a revised geometry, shorter chainstays and fork rake that has been reduced to bring it closer to the Xelius SL. There's also a new aero seatpost, direct mount brakes and 'TrapDoor technology' whereby the Di2 battery is housed in the down tube for better weight distribution.

Lapierre has integrated the fork crown into the down tube to bring the front wheel closer to the frame. It’s also using a direct mount brake calliper which allows the fork crown height to be lower than with a standard brake.

Read our review of the Lapierre Aircode SL 900 Ultimate​
Read our coverage of the launch of the Lapierre Aircode SL
Find a Lapierre dealer

Bianchi Oltre XR3 2019 – £2,805-£4,699

Bianchi took the Oltre XR2 as its starting point for the XR3's design and then altered many of the tubes and features, resulting in a very different bike. The head tube is new, for example, the aero design fairly similar to that of the XR4, and the seat tube is new too, although it is still cut away around the leading edge of the rear wheel.

The Oltre XR3 features Bianchi's Countervail technology, Countervail being "a patented viscoelastic carbon material with a unique fibre architecture that cancels up to 80% of vibrations while increasing the stiffness and strength of carbon frames and forks", according to Bianchi.

The Oltre XR3 is nimble and sharp handling, and it offers a ride that's smooth by aero road bike standards.

Read our Bianchi Oltre XR3 review
Read our Bianchi Oltre XR3 Disc review
Find a Bianchi dealer

Although there are ever more disc brake-equipped race bikes out there in the shops, most disc brake road bikes produced at the moment are endurance/sportive bikes or all-rounders that are bought by people who simply want the reassurance of all-weather stopping power. The bikes below are a mixture of styles, frame materials and prices so check through and find out what takes your interest.

Check out the hottest disc brake-equipped race bikes

The lines between bike categories have never been more blurred, but we've tried to keep this selection to bikes that are intended entirely or primarily for use on Tarmac. Of course where you ride has as much to do with rider skill as with how fat a tyre your frame will take, but these are bikes for long days in the lanes in sportives, Audaxes, and big rides with friends rather than for exploring dirt roads and trails.

If you want something more versatile, take a look at our guide to the best gravel & adventure bikes, which covers this super-versatile and still-developing category.

Bianchi Infinito CV Disc Ultegra — £3,699

Bianch's updated Infinito CV Disc endurance bike is a little more relaxed than a traditional race machine and it offers a notably smooth ride, but it's still responsive enough to snap into action as soon as you put the power down.

The riding position is a little more upright than that of a traditional race bike, although we're not talking about chalk and cheese here. Far from it. It feels like, in typical Italian style, Bianchi has grudgingly accepted that these days not all bikes can be built to an old school geometry and that concessions have had to be made to newfangled endurance. It's relaxed, but not too relaxed – like undoing your top button and loosening your tie, but a long way short of going full T-shirt and jeans.

The handling is a little more relaxed and easier to live with too. The Infinito CV Disc isn't quite as eager to change line as a highly strung bike like the Oltre. The flip side is that the Infinito feels more stable and composed and is easier to keep in check. The longer the ride, the more of an asset this becomes.

Read our review of the Bianchi Infinito CV Disc Ultegra
Find a Bianchi dealer

Triban RC 520 Disc — £729

Ever since John took the B'Twin Triban 520 Disc road bike for a first ride in London in early October, we've been keen to see if it could stand up to his first impressions, as well as the great value legacy of previous Triban road bikes we've tested. It really does, although riders used to or wanting a racier geometry should look elsewhere.

The geometry thing is a really important point here. With the Triban 520, it's all about a functional position aimed right at tourers and regular commuters at one end of the spectrum, and endurance roadies at the other.

With a super-tall head tube and compact top tube, the bike sits you upright relative to your general entry-level race bike, or even a fair chunk of the endurance-specific market too. It fully justifies its do-it-all tag for everyone except budding racers.

What surprises most about the Triban 520 is just how accessible the ride is; how easy it is to pedal the bike at moderate speeds and feel like you're just cruising along. Cornering in any situation is confidence-inspiring, and it rolls incredibly smoothly too. It takes poor road surfaces in its stride, with a good amount of all-round compliance keeping things comfortable, and as long as you stay in the saddle it climbs moderately well too.

Read our review of the Triban RC 520 Disc

Boardman ASR 8.9 —£1,300

The Boardman ASR, or "all season road", is a really good value package that offers a relaxed ride with the classic looks and feel of steel, the modern convenience of hydraulic discs brakes, and clearance for wide tyres. It does fine duty as an all-weather commuter or as a bike for long day rides. Eating up long, steady miles in comfort is what the ASR does best.

The 8.9 arrives ready for winter, with mudguards fitted to the Reynolds 725 steel frame, 28mm Vittoria tyres, plus reflective frame details ticking all the boxes for commuting through the rough British weather. Remove the mudguards and the bike easily has clearance for wider tyres, so it also fits the bill for summer towpath pootling and brief gravel forays. There's a full Shimano 105 groupset here with hydraulic disc brakes, and Boardman's own bar and tubeless-ready wheels, so with, say, 28mm road tyres like Schwalbe Ones it's as capable an Audax or club-run bike as it is a commuter.

Read our review of the Boardman ASR 8.9
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Canyon Endurace — £1,349-£5,899

Canyon's wildly popular Endurace bikes went disc-equipped a couple of years ago, and are all the better for it. The models span one the biggest price ranges here, from £1,349 for the Shimano 105-equipped Endurace AL Disc 7.0 up to the £5,899 Endurace CF SLX Disc 9.0 Di2 with Shimano Dura-Ace electronic shifting and DT Swiss carbon fibre wheels.

Read our review of the Canyon Endurace CF SLX 9.0

BMC Roadmachine — £2,025-£9,000

BMC’s Roadmachines are disc-braked fast endurance machines with room for at least 28mm tyres. The range includes aluminium and carbon fibre frames, with a range of equipment from Shimano Tiagra to SRAM Red eTap, and the latest version of the eTap-equipped Roadmachine 01 ONE is probably the most expensive production bike you can currently buy at £12,000 RRP.

Find out more about BMC’s Roadmachine range here
Find a BMC dealer

Focus Paralane 2019 — £1,659-£4,099

​The six-bike Paralane range starts with the £1,659 aluminium-framed Paralane 6.9 with Shimano 105 components and goes up to the £4,099 carbon-framed Paralane 9.9 with Shimano Ultegra Di2. Long-ride features include comfort-enhancing tube profiles and carbon layup, a skinny seatpost and 28mm tyres, that together provide a smooth ride that is up there with the best in this category. It isolates you from the worst road buzz but without completely detaching you from the road entirely. It's a really good balance for those who want some feedback from the surface without being shaken to pieces.

Read our review of the Focus Paralane Ultegra
Find a Focus dealer

Whyte Wessex — £1,999-£4,499

Fast and sporty, with all the practicality and dependability of hydraulic disc brakes, wide tyres and space for full-length mudguards, the Whyte Wessex is a bike that is up to the task of taking on the roughest roads and toughest weather.

If you put racing to one side, it's all the bike you really need for year-round riding in the UK, fast enough for sportives and pacy training runs, comfortable and reliable for grinding out winter miles, and at home on longer commutes. Only a British company could design a bike that is absolutely, perfectly, 100 per cent suited to the demands of year-round UK road cycling.

Read our review of the Whyte Wessex
Find a Whyte dealer

Giant Contend SL Disc — £999-£1,249

The Giant Contend SL Disc bikes feature an Aluxx SL frameset, D-Fuse seatpost that’s designed to add comfort and Giant Conduct hydraulic disc brakes. You get mechanical shifters with a cable to hydraulic converter at the front of the stem. It's a nifty solution to avoiding the (more expensive) Shimano shifters but the jury's out on the aesthetics of the converter.

Check out our first look at the Giant Contend SL range
Read our guide to Giant’s 2019 range
Find a Giant dealer

Wilier Cento10NDR 2019 — £7,999

Wilier’s Cento10NDR endurance road bike is designed to take either rim brakes or disc brakes – you get mount points for both. It also features what’s called an ‘Actiflex’ system on the rear triangle with stays that flex, a pivot at the top of the seatstays and an elastomer shock damper, the idea being to provide a few millimetres of rear wheel travel in order to isolate the rider from the ground and add comfort.

The chainstays are bonded to the bottom bracket shell in the usual way, the Actiflex system relying, as the name suggests, on flex in the stays in order to work.

The dropouts of both the frame and fork are replaceable so you can run the bike with standard quick release skewers or 142 x 12mm thru axles.

Find out more about the Wilier Cento10NDR here
Find a Wilier dealer

Trek Domane Disc — £2,350-£8,750

Trek’s Domane range includes different framesets in aluminium and carbon fibre, and all of the disc-equipped models feature an IsoSpeed decoupler that allows the seat tube to move relative to the top tube and seatstays, so the saddle can move downwards (and a little backwards), providing more give and adding comfort to the ride.

More expensive models get a front IsoSpeed system designed to increase comfort and control, along with adjustment to the rear IsoSpeed decoupler. A lot of technology goes into keeping you comfortable!

Read our guide to Trek’s 2019 road bike range here
Have a look at the Trek Domane here
Find a Trek dealer

Specialized Roubaix £2,600-£10,000

Specialized’s carbon-fibre Roubaix bikes feature a suspension damper housed in the top of the head tube that aims to isolate the handlebar from bumps and cobbles. It's called Future Shock, provides up to 20mm of suspension travel and can be adjusted to suit different rider weights.

The Roubaix is a disc-only bike these days, uses thru-axles front and rear, and has space for fairly fat tyres.

Specialized has just announced a major revamp of the Roubaix platform, with a new adjustable suspension unit in the steerer, a lighter frame, and clearance for 33mm tyres, among other improvements.

Check out Specialized’s 2019 road bike range here
Find a Specialized dealer

Cannondale Synapse Disc — £800-£3,200

Cannondale offers both aluminium and carbon-fibre versions of its Synapse endurance bike. The cheapest of the aluminium models is just £849.99, built up with Shimano’s dependable Sora groupset and Promax mechanical disc brakes.

At the other end of the range, the Synapse Hi-Mod Disc with Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 components is priced at £7,799.99.

Read our coverage of the Cannondale Synapse Disc launch
Read our review of the £2,699 2016 Cannondale Synapse Ultegra Disc
Find a Cannondale dealer

Scott Addict Disc — £1,649-£3,599

Scott’s carbon fibre Addict Disc bikes are built to an endurance geometry and they’re said to be both lighter and stiffer than the Solace models that they replace. They come with 32mm wide tyres for plenty of comfort. All six models — three men's and three women's — use Shimano hydraulic disc brakes.

Find a Scott dealer

Rose Team GF 4 Disc — from £1,995.74-£2,995.07

The Team GF 4 Disc takes over from the Xeon CDX in Rose’s lineup and is designed for long distances rides like sportives. The carbon frame comes with a claimed weight of just 990g, which is very light for a bike of this kind. You get to choose from five different Shimano and SRAM builds. The top model, above, is hung with SRAM's new 12-speed Force eTap AXS and is probably the least expensive bike on the market with that groupset.

Lapierre Sensium Disc— £1,799-£2,749

The Sensium, available in both disc and rim brake models, comes with a carbon-fibre frame that’s built to an endurance geometry designed to be comfortable throughout long days in the saddle.

The more affordable of the two disc models, the Senium 500 Disc, features a Shimano 105 groupset while the Sensium 600 Disc makes the step up to Ultegra.

Find a Lapierre dealer

J. Laverack J.ACK Disc £3,850-£6,950

Yeah, you could have carbon, but in some people's eyes, it will never look as good as titanium.

There is also something fantastic about having a bike built just for you, your riding style and what you intend to use the bike for. With custom head badge options, eyelets and shot blasted graphics on top of that, the J.ACK becomes part bike, part work of art.

J.Laverack also works with the likes of Hope, Hunt and Brooks to make the bike brilliantly British.

Check out our review of the J.Laverack R J.ACK III

Check out 12 of 2018’s hottest disc brake-equipped race bikes

Tubeless wheelsets have become way more popular recently, thanks especially to the growing number of tubeless tyres out there these days, and here are some of the best that we've reviewed for over a grand.

Check out the best tubeless wheelsets for under £1,000

A tubeless system is essentially a clincher tyre inflated onto a rim without an inner tube. Instead, an airtight chamber is created with a tubeless-specific tyre, developed with a special bead and a compatible rim.

One big advantage is the substantially reduced risk of puncturing, as long as you use liquid sealant inside the tyre and keep it topped up. If the tyre is punctured, the sealant plugs the hole. The tyre might suffer a small drop in pressure if you puncture, but the sealant will deal with most small holes caused by flint and thorns, allowing you to keep riding.

If you want to go tubeless you need the right wheels, and here are 10 of the best, some for rim brakes and some for discs. They've all been awarded an overall of score of at least 8 out of 10 in road.cc reviews.

Token Prime Ventous Carbon Disc Road — £1,099.99

The Prime Ventous Carbon Disc Road wheels boast excellent build quality and great looks. They perform really well and are pretty good value too.

Build quality is very good with the wheels using a full-carbon rim, Pillar Wing spokes and Token's own D1 hubs, backed with a two-year warranty.

With sealant added, they inflated onto the rim easily with a track pump and straight away showed the trend for wider rims, the internal width spreading the tyre out so that it was a nice curve flush with the external 27mm edge. Mounted on the bike they looked great, and spinning the wheels led to a long wait for them to stop on the quality sealed bearings.

Tester Sean used the Token Ventous wheels for the 1,000+ miles of the Land's End to John o'Groats Deloitte Ride Across Britain. The early couple of days were super-hilly, lots of out of the saddle grinding and fast descents on the other side. The wheels were stiff but did have a little give under pressure – he's 90kg – but weren't fazed at all and continued on at pace whatever the gradient, the acceleration when cracking on at the base giving a welcome extra bit of speed to carry up.

On the other side, the super-smooth bearings and stiff construction made for a very controlled descent, inspiring confidence (in part to the rubber) on the twistier sections.

Sean concluded that he would gladly ride them every day after the punishment they endured with ease. They look good, perform well and are great for the money, with the quality of the components and competitive weight justifying the cost against competitors in the sector.

Read our review of the Token Prime Ventous Carbon Disc Road wheelset
Find a Token dealer

Reynolds AR 41 DB — £1,100

The Reynolds AR 41 DB Wheelset provides very good aero performance for everyday riding or racing and hilly sportives, with easy tubeless installation, and all at a competitive price that stands up well in a saturated carbon wheel market.

As the name suggests, the rim measures 41mm deep, but there are also 29 and 58mm options. The rims are also wide, being 30mm at their widest point, with a 21mm internal width – whopping compared to traditional 15mm internal width rims.

Reynolds also designs its own hubs to complement the rims and they're good looking items. They use straight pull spokes locked into stubby flanges along with the Centerlock interface for easily and quickly attaching disc rotors.

Performance of the wheels is highly impressive. The shape and depth of the rims produce very good handling in changeable and windy conditions, with no instability issues in strong crosswinds.

They're also fast, maintaining speed nicely. They don't have the outright savage speed of a much deeper design, but as an all-round set for everyday use and long distance rides over hilly terrain, they're a preferred choice.

The quality is very good, comparable to wheels costing a lot more, and lives up to our previous experience with Reynolds. We had no issues or complaints during our time with these, they just went about their business without fuss. And we've hammered them too, in the fierce pace of a local chain gang and on longer rides over the rolling Cotswolds and all of its potholes and rubbish road surfaces.

You get a lifetime warranty with the wheels, which adds a good bit of peace of mind, and just knowing that Reynolds has been producing wheels for a long time also makes them a reassuring choice in what is a pretty saturated wheel market.

Read our review of the Reynolds AR 41 DB wheelset
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Scope R4c — £1,261

Netherlands-based brand Scope's R4c wheels have a quality ride feel backed up by a decent amount of aerodynamic benefit, making them a good all-round road wheelset. The weight is pretty impressive too, and the price isn’t bad when you realise it includes tyres and valves.

The stiffness of this build is one of things that impressed me most. Hard sprinting and climbing efforts that had wheels like the Aera AR55 set touching the brake blocks had no effect on the lateral movement of the R4c pair at all. Cornering hard and heavy braking does little to unsettle them either.

The ride quality is good too. Some deep-section rims, especially those from the budget end of the spectrum, can feel buzzy and harsh over rough road surfaces but there is none of that here. The 45mm-deep, rounded rims are perfectly damped and make for a very pleasurable ride when the tarmac is far from smooth.

On the flat, you start to notice the aerodynamic benefits of a deep-section rim once you get to about 50-60mm in depth, so the Scopes aren't quite as easy to keep rolling above speeds of around 25mph but they really aren't that far off.

On the flipside you've got the added benefit of more versatility as they are less susceptible to strong crosswinds than a deeper wheel and the weight can be kept down, making them a decent climbing wheel.

The SKF bearings in the Scope hubs run smoothly and the freehub engagement at the rear is quick and precise for when you want to hammer away from a standing start.

Read our review of the Scope R4c wheelset

Hunt 30 Carbon Dynamo Disc — £1,059

These Carbon 30 Disc Dynamo wheels are excellent. The rim is 30mm deep, made from unidirectional T24/30 carbon fibre with the spoke holes reinforced with a 3K weave. It's a reasonably wide profile, with a 27mm external width and a 21mm internal profile.

The wheels came with tubeless rim tape fitted, and a hole for the valve. Fitting Schwalbe G-One Speeds was easy. Our review pair came tightly built and true, and they stayed that way during testing. With 28 spokes front and rear they're built for bikepacking and ultra-distance rather than fully loaded touring; Hunt recommends a 115kg limit for rider and luggage.

The SON Delux dynamo is specifically designed for road riding. It weighs just 395g and when turned off generates just 0.4W of drag, barely more than a standard front hub. The efficiency is rated at 65%, and the dynamo outputs 3W of power at 20km/h, so to power your lights or your USB charger you can expect to be putting less than 5W into the system. We used the dynamo with a Busch & Muller IQ-X front light and a Supernova E3 rear, getting easily enough power to light the way.

At the rear Hunt is using its 4Season Disc hub that has extra shielding for the EZO cartridge bearings inside. Both front and rear hubs use standard J-bend spokes which should be fairly easy to find a replacement for if you pop one out on tour. The wheels come with two spares of each length to take with you too, plus a spoke key, 6-bolt adaptors for the Centerlock disc mounts, tubeless rim tape (fitted) and tubeless valves.

Overall these wheels are excellent. They're light and well built, the front dynamo is as good as they come for road riding and the rear hub has been great too. They're sensibly built, come with spares, and are set up for the long haul.

Read our review of the Hunt 30 Carbon Dynamo Disc wheels

Reynolds ATR X 650B — £1,235

The original ATR rim was a chunky affair, and this design (called the ATR 2 when we reviewed it, but having since be renamed) is even wider: 23mm internally and 32mm externally, with a depth of 40mm. The bulbous profile follows the developments in aero wheel technology that are pushing towards increasingly toroidal designs, but Reynolds doesn't make any particular aero claims for this wheelset.

You get 24 spokes front and rear; that's not much for an all-purpose wheelset like this, but one of the main benefits of a carbon rim is that it's laterally stiffer for the same weight, meaning that the spoke count can be reduced.

If you're heading off to terrain that's more challenging, especially with a loaded bike, then carbon does still have advantages over alloy for its impact resistance.

These ATR wheels were easy to set up tubeless. Ours came fitted with rim tape and were supplied with valves. The 40mm Schwalbe G-Ones went up first time; bigger tyres that were a baggier fit required a couple of extra wraps of tape to tighten things up, but we got them sealed just fine.

Our test wheels came fitted a Shimano 11-speed freehub. You can also have an XD driver if you want a wider cassette, or a Campagnolo freehub.

The disc mount is Centerlock and these wheels come set up with 12mm axles front and rear. You can run the front as a 15mm axle; those end caps come with the wheels. If you want to run quick releases then QR end caps are available separately.

We had a very positive experience with these wheels. As a 650B wheelset, they're not necessarily overpriced considering the materials and build quality (and lifetime warranty), but you might question whether, for riding on the road with big tyres, a carbon rim has enough of a benefit over alloy to justify the inevitable price difference. It'll depend on what you're planning. If your riding takes you to genuinely technical terrain, or you're riding a loaded bike, or both, the extra stiffness and impact resistance of a carbon rim will be useful. If you're looking for more comfort on the road then the performance is great, but the price hike less justified.

Read our review of the Reynolds ATR X 650B wheels
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Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless DT 350 — £1,159.99

These Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless Ready wheels are seriously good for their price tag. They're stable in strong winds, quick to spin up to speed and also quick to stop. What's more, you get great hubs and high-end pads. It's a great package.

This full carbon wheelset comes in at a very respectable 1,450g. The rims are 26mm wide externally, laced to the brilliant DT Swiss 350 hubs with DT Aerolite spokes.

Those hubs are pretty bombproof. While these wheels were used in mostly dry conditions, we've had these hubs on wheels that have seen some horrendous weather; they're solid and don't require much attention. While we're on reliability, we had zero spoke tension issues even after a few big hits in races.

At 45mm deep, these strike a great balance between speed, quick acceleration and handling. They don't pick up strong winds which is probably down to the blunt profile at the leading and trailing edges.

One of the attractions of this set of wheels is what you get for your money. They come in a well-padded double wheel bag with a zippered storage compartment containing brake pads and skewers. You also get a set of tubeless valves.

Read our review of the Fast Forward F4R FCC wheels
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Giant SLR 0 42mm — £1,549.98

The Giant SLR 0 42mm wheels are an ideal all-round go-faster set of hoops. The rims are wide, feel fast and handle well. The hubs are simple to service, quiet and robust. They performed excellently during testing in my mix of hilly races, flat criteriums and general riding with good braking and stability in crosswinds.

The 42mm-deep full-carbon rims are tubeless ready and the spokes are DT Aerolites – straight-pull with internal nipples. This gives a very clean build, although one that isn't so easy for maintenance. Not that it will matter, for a while at least, as the wheels were perfectly straight out of the box and remained that way.

The hubs are Giant branded, with DT Swiss 240 internals. This is a great balance between performance and reliability with easy maintenance.

We didn't find these wheels hard to handle in windy conditions. In fact, they felt very stable. The wheels also feel zippy when climbing thanks to the respectable weight: 629g front and 791g rear, giving a total of 1,420g. Weight isn't everything, though. We were also impressed with the lateral stiffness.

Overall, we were impressed with these Giant wheels because they're a great option if you want one wheelset for racing and general riding.

Read our review of the Giant SLR 0 42mm wheels
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DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline 65 — £1,507.48

The DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline clincher wheels have deep section 65mm rims for aerodynamic efficiency, they're well made and come with excellent internals.

The rim is a NACA shape with a fairly blunt profile, although the PRCs are in no way bulbous like Zipps, for example. The PRCs can be a little hard to handle on some gusty, blustery days, but this is rare – and not much different from any other wheels of a similar depth.

The PRC wheels use DT Swiss's well-respected 240 hubs. The freehub features a ratchet system (rather than standard pawls). Springs push two 36-tooth star ratchets together to engage when you pedal, all of the teeth engaging at the same time in just 10 degrees. This system works really well and durability is excellent.

The wheels feel stiff in use, so you can set your brake pads very close to the rim without danger of rubbing when you corner hard or ride out of the saddle.

Braking in dry conditions is good – progressive without any grabbing – and braking in the wet, although not exceptional, is sure and confident.

You get tubeless tape and tubeless valves as part of the package (along with RWS Steel quick releases and SwissStop Black Prince brake pads). Setting them up tubeless is easy enough.

You are getting some seriously good wheels for your money here. Granted, these don't offer quite the aero performance of DT Swiss's ARC 1100 Dicut wheels but the PRCs feature excellent components, they're stiff, braking is good and, for their depth, they feel pretty stable in most conditions. This is a reliable high-performance wheelset that puts in a great performance in a variety of conditions.

Read our review of the DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline 65 wheels
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Roval CLX 50 Disc — £1,399

Fast, light and wide, these tubeless carbon disc brake wheels offer excellent performance.

The aim for the new Roval CLX 50 was to marry the aero performance of the deeper section CLX 64 with the lightness of the shallower CLX 32. At 1,415g with a 50mm-deep rim and disc brake hubs, they appear to have achieved that objective. This is a very attractive weight in a hugely competitive wheel market.

It's a full carbon fibre construction, tubeless ready and available in disc or rim brake versions, with a wide and bulbous profile rim. Internal rim width is 20.7mm, external is 29.4mm, ensuring wider tyres are happily accommodated; between 22 and 47mm can be used.

The clincher rims are tubeless-ready, using a hookless bead design that is favoured by a few other wheel brands, and claimed to provide a stronger rim with less weight.

At the centre of the wheels are new hubs designed to minimise drag. That accounts for the smooth shape. Inside the hubs are DT Swiss 240 internals with upgraded CeramicSpeed bearings. DT Swiss also supplies the Aerolite spokes.

These wheels are superbly fast in a straight line and maintain excellent momentum when you're really pushing hard on the pedals. They're also tough and dependable. They easily shrug off bad road surfaces; we've smashed into potholes and ridden them along gravel tracks and they've taken all the punishment with no sign of loose spokes or going out of true.

They're smooth and comfortable for a deep-section wheelset, something you really appreciate when riding along a washboard or chattery surface, where the rapid vibrations can easily unsettle an otherwise smooth ride, and especially if you head off onto gravel or dirt roads.

The Rovals handle winds superbly. The rounded rim profile provides exceptionally good stability with little sign of buffeting even in the strongest gusts.

Read our review of the Roval CLX 50 Disc wheels
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Mavic Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST — £1,479.00

Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST wheels make tubeless technology truly nothing to fear, with all the benefits attached. These are very capable performance all-rounders.

Compared to the previous model, these wheels come with a re-engineered, deeper rim bed with an additional lip to create a secure tubeless seal, and specially designed Yksion Pro tyres to fit this new design.

The rim has an external width of 25mm rim, an internal width of 17mm and a 40mm depth, with a NACA-inspired profile. The excellent iTgMax laser brake track treatment improves the braking performance.

These wheels excel in pretty much any conditions – including gusty winds, where they stay remarkably stable. On climbs they're stiff as you like and they'll slice through valley headwinds.

Although not quite the performance-value proposition they used to be back when they were clinchers, Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL USTs are still competitive, while boasting arguably the easiest-to-install tubeless interface around.

Read our review of the Mavic Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST wheels
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Bontrager Aeolus XXX 4 TLR Clincher Road — £1,999.98

Bontrager's Aeolus XXX 4 TLR clincher wheels are stiff, lightweight and steady in use and offer good braking in both wet and dry conditions. This is a great all-round aero wheelset that's suitable for a wide variety of conditions.

The rim shape is completely new, developed using CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software and wind tunnel testing. The external width at the brake track is 27mm while the internal width is to 21mm, offering plenty of support for the 25mm tyres for which these wheels are optimised. Bontrager says that the Aeolus XXX 4 has lower drag than the Zipp 303 NSW at all yaw angles from 0-17.5°, with the Zipp slightly lower at 20°.

The wheelset is lightweight considering the rim depth, ours coming in at 1,420g for the pair. The focus here is more on aerodynamics, but you're never going to turn down a saving.

The Aeolus XXX 4 TLRs are stiff and stable. Crosswinds do have an effect, but it's not massive considering the 47mm rim depth and there's none of that twitchiness that you get with some aero rims. The Aeolus XXX 4 TLRs have behaved well on super-windy rides recently. Crosswinds do have an effect, of course, but it's not massive considering the 47mm rim depth and, even more important to my mind, the wheels behave predictably. There's none of that twitchiness that you get with some.

Bontrager has introduced a new feature to the rim brake versions of its Aeolus XXX wheels called a Laser Control Track. Automated laser machining 'roughens the brake track to an optimised level that maximises braking performance when used with SwissStop Black Prince pads (which come as part of the package). Braking performance is noticeably better than before, especially in wet conditions.

All of Bontrager's XXX models are tubeless-ready, coming with the necessary rim strips, valve stems and sealant refill kit.

Read our review of the Bontrager Aeolus XXX 4 TLR wheels
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Knight 35 Tubeless — £2,000.00

The Knight 35 wheels are fast; they are also stiff, reliable and stable.

The 35s come with DT Swiss 240 hubs, which are brilliant. With cartridge bearings and easy servicing, they should last for ages.

Spokes are Sapim's CX Rays. One thing that slightly annoyed our reviewer was the use of internal nipples. Yes, it looks clean but should you ping these out of true thanks to a pothole, it's more of a hassle to get them straight again.

Although the wheelset isn't superlight – ours came in at 1,590g with rim tape and skewers installed – the weight is still pretty low, and translates to a nippy feel. It's very easy to get these wheels up to speed and then increase that speed, especially when climbing.

The 35s are the shallowest section wheels that Knight offers. The rim profile is somewhere between a 'V' shape and a 'U'. This gives the rim an external width of 25mm, sitting very nicely with wider tyres.

The brake track is engineered with a 3mm brake surface for improved heat dissipation in an attempt by Knight to combat brake fade and even blow-outs on long descents. The braking is smooth and consistent. While stopping still isn't as good as aluminium rims, there is room for improvement in the form of softer brake pads; those supplied are quite hard. That does mean they'll last quite a while, but we were quick to swap in a softer pad for better power.

Overall, the Knight 35s offer a very good package for a shallow carbon clincher.

Read our review of the Knight 35 Tubeless wheels

Edco Brocon Disc — £2,900

The new Edco Brocon Disc Brake wheelset pushes the boundaries when it comes to the design and use of carbon fibre pretty much throughout. The wheels are light, strong and offer a wonderful ride feel, but you do have to pay nearly three grand for them.

For the Brocons' construction, Edco has used a 10k carbon weave design rather than a uni-directional one (woven, rather than all the fibres travel in one direction), saying that the higher shield strength of the woven material increases the impact strength. It's certainly a strong set of wheels and they feel absolutely solid.

The Brocons are based around 28mm-deep, tubeless-ready carbon rims, which means they are more of an 'all-rounder' than a deeper pure race wheel, although that does keep the weight down. (Ignore the name on the rim – we were sent an early set, incorrectly labelled.)

The pair weigh just 1,500g including the supplied tubeless rim tape, which is pretty impressive for a disc brake wheelset. With an inner rim width of just 17mm, Edco recommends tyres only up to 28mm wide.

What really sets the Brocons apart from most other wheels is the use of carbon fibre for the spokes that are easily adjusted or replaced. The hubs are aluminium alloy with NBK bearings and water resistant o-rings.

The Brocons are very stiff with is absolutely no feeling of lateral flex when you are giving it everything in a sprint or on a climb. This stiffness doesn't translate to harshness, though, as the carbon fibre spokes give a plush ride taking out any road buzz.

The Edcos are solid and feel very strong, standing up to all the abuse we threw at them and remaining true throughout. The hubs feel very smooth and the freehub pawl engagement is brilliantly quick.

These are very good wheels and although the price is high because of the technology and materials, it's not necessarily excessive for what you are getting.

Read our review of the Edco Brocon Disc wheels
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If you have £1,000 to £1,500 to spend on a road bike, you really do get a lot for you money. A benefit of spending this sort of money is that the bikes start to get much lighter than those costing half as much, which will have a significant impact on the ride quality and performance, and your times up your local hills.

Shimano 105 and Tiagra are the dominant groupsets in this price range. While there is a lot of own-brand kit for parts like wheels, handlebars and saddles, which is no bad thing (manufacturers have really raised their game with own label components), there is a lot more branded kit from the likes of Mavic and Fizik.

You'll typically find yourself making a decision between an aluminium frame (which range between very good and superb in this price range) with a groupset such as Shimano 105 or a carbon frame with Shimano Tiagra. Which you go for will depend, among other things, on whether you're a parts upgrader or a bike replacer when it comes to future developments.

We're also starting to see some intriguing, innovative thinking in this price range, like the fat-tyred, single chainring Road Plus Whyte Glencoe, if you fancy something more than a bit different.

Pinnacle Arkose R2 — £1,250

The Pinnacle Arkose R2 is a great option if you're looking for a versatile aluminium adventure, commuter or winter bike (or indeed all three at once) that is well specced for the price.

Pinnacle has been making the Arkose for a number of years. It was originally created off the back of a cyclo-cross design, and has become more of an adventure/gravel bike over time. It's an excellent all-rounder.

Read our review of the Pinnacle Arkose 3

Planet X Pro Carbon EVO Shimano 105 R7000 — £1,099.99

The Planet X Pro Carbon has always been a popular entry-level carbon fibre bike, but it was looking a bit dated. This new version corrects that with modern lines, a new lay-up, and tapered steerer, among other changes, and it's currently available with Shimano's 105 R7000 groupset for the extremely reasonable  price of eleven hundred quid.

B’Twin Ultra 900 CF 105 — £1,199.99

The Ultra CF 900 is further evidence, if any was needed, that B'Twin knows how to build awesome-riding race bikes which offer excellent stiffness, handling and speed while also managing to be unbelievably comfortable. Bung in a sub-£1.5k price tag for a full-carbon frame and fork, Shimano 105 groupset and Mavic wheels, and it really is an exciting package.

With its 'UCI approved for racing' logo on the top tube and its geometry, I was really expecting the Ultra CF 900 to be a no-nonsense speed machine, sacrificing comfort for performance, especially when you take into account those huge tube profiles. In use, though, it is completely the opposite.

The ride is sublime, absorbing pretty much everything the road surface can chuck at it, so you just waft along at a very impressive pace, smashing mile after mile without effort.

This bike is now also known as the Van Rysel RR 900 CF, with the latest Shimano 105 R7000 components and in a full range of sizes.

Read our review of the B’Twin Ultra 900 CF 105

Boardman ASR 8.9 — £1,300

The Boardman ASR, or "all season road", is a really good value package that offers a relaxed ride with the classic looks and feel of steel, the modern convenience of hydraulic disc brakes, and clearance for wide tyres.

The 8.9 arrives ready for winter, with mudguards fitted to the frame, 28mm Vittoria tyres, plus reflective frame details ticking all the boxes for commuting through the rough British weather. Remove the mudguards and the bike easily has clearance for wider tyres, so it also fits the bill for summer towpath pootling and brief gravel forays.

Riding over rough stuff on my cycle path commute was generally a breeze, and the only real 'problem' I had with it was manoeuvrability. While the stem is shortened in an attempt to make the steering springier, I did find the ASR a bit sluggish when trying to corner quickly, which I'll put down to the relaxed angles of the frame and longer top tube making the bike quite slow to respond.

It does make for really stable handling, though, and it's not really designed to be aggressively chucked around; it's more about finesse than fast and furious. Eating up long, steady miles in comfort is what the ASR does best, and as someone who's prone to head out for a run or carry on riding if the weather's okay when I get home, it was ideal for a period of building base fitness in early spring.

Read our review of the Boardman ASR 8.9

Whyte Glencoe — £1,299

Whyte's Glencoe is a 650B-wheeled Road Plus bike that brings together a lot of the emerging trends in the road bike market into a really compelling package that will appeal to anyone wanting a smooth, comfortable, stable and confidence-inspiring road bike.

The Glencoe combines an aluminium frame and fork rolling on wide profile WTB tubeless-ready rims and WTB Horizon 47mm tyres, and the stop and start are taken care of by an SRAM Apex 1x11 groupset, with an 11-42t cassette and 44T chainring, and TRP HyRd hydraulic disc brakes with 160mm rotors. The finishing kit is all Whyte branded, including the 50cm wide handlebar that is unique to the Glencoe. Yes at 11.56kg (25.48lb) it’s heavy, but weight isn’t everything.

Read our review of the Whyte Glencoe
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Giant Contend SL Disc 1 2019 — £999

Giant has two families of endurance bikes, the Defy series with carbon fibre frames and disk brakes throughout the range, and the Contend bikes with aluminium frames and a choice of discs or rim brakes. This is the top model in the six-bike Contend family. It has Shimano's excellent-value Shimano 105 11-speed transmission, and Giant's own hydraulic disc brakes. We liked the rim-braked 2017 version, but thought it could use better brakes.

It's usually £1,249, so at this end of year price it's a major bargain.

Read our review of the Giant Contend SL1
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Ribble CGR — £1,399

Cross, Gravel, Road, that's what the CGR initials stand for on Ribble's latest all-rounder. A disc brake-equipped, mudguard-shod 'do a bit of everything' machine that makes a lot of sense for the rider who doesn't always want to stick to the tarmac. Thankfully, this jack of all trades is no master of none.

Thanks to Ribble's online bike builder, you can have any spec you like. The CGR starts from £799 with Shimano Sora; the price here is for the option with Shimano 105 and hydraulic brakes, which gives a good combination of slick shifting and powerful stopping.

Read our review of the Ribble CGR

Cannondale CAAD12 105 2019 — £999.95 (limited sizes)

When it was launched the CAAD12 set a new benchmark for all-aluminium frames; it still puts a lot of carbon bikes to shame. With a frame weight under 1,100g for the disc brake and regular versions, it's not much heavier than carbon either. Cannondale package the frame with a full Shimano 105 groupset, carbon fibre fork with tapered steerer tube, 52/36 crank, Mavic Aksium wheels and a Selle Royal Seta S1 saddle. You can also have it with disc brakes for an extra £300.

The CAAD12 105's RRP is £1,400 so this is a great end-of-season deal.

Read our report from the CAAD12 launch
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Canyon Ultimate CF SL 7.0 — £1,449

German company Canyon has made quite an impression in the UK with its direct-to-consumer business model meaning big savings for those prepared to bypass the bike shop for their next bike purchase. The Ultimate CF SL is produced using the same mould as that the Ultimate CF SLX we tested a while ago, it's just using a cheaper carbon fibre. That keeps the price lower. Although the weight does go up a bit, it's still light at a claimed 940g. This is the entry-level model built with a full Shimano 105 groupset, Mavic Aksium wheels, Continental GP 4000 25mm tyres, Canyon's own bars and stem and a Fizik Antares saddle.

Trek Émonda ALR 5 2019 — £1,350

This bike has at its heart the aluminium version of Trek's lightweight Émonda platform, equipped with Shimano's new 105 R7000 groupset.

The Emonda line is Trek's take on making the lightest road bikes it can produce for a given price, which means the frame here is worth upgrading as the parts wear out; it wouldn't be shamed by a Shimano Ultegra groupset.

Find a Trek dealer

Rose Pro SL Disc 105 — £1,405.82

German direct-sales operation Rose has some very keenly priced bikes, like this disc-braked sportive/endurance model that boasts an aluminium frame with room for 28mm tyres, and a full Shimano 105 groupset with hydraulic brakes. When he reviewed the next bike up in the range, the Ultegra-equipped Rose Pro SL Disc 3000, Stu Kerton said "Thanks to its neutral handling and impressive build spec, the Pro SL is the ideal steed for a day in the saddle with no surprises."

Read our review of the Rose Pro SL Disc 3000 Hydraulic